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THE ARMY OF 1918 



BY 

COLONEL ROBERT R. McCORMICK 



M 



NEW YORK 

HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 

1920 






Copyright, 1920, by 
Robert R. McCormick 



OCT 27 \i2d 
©CI,A601102 



TO OUR DEAD 



FOEEWORD 

In the early days of my service, while on duty 
with the General Staff of the A. E. F., I expected 
to publish my observations upon the development 
and conduct of that army ; but when the war came 
to a sudden and unexpected end, after a campaign 
in which I had no part, I abandoned the idea. 

Now, however, more than a year has passed 
since the armistice. The great army has gone 
back into civil life. The Regular Army is rap- 
idly returning to its bureaucracy. Congress ap- 
pears farther from adopting a military policy 
than at any period in the last decade. The Na- 
tional Guard Association wants to smash the 
Regular Army; and the pacifists, as though en- 
couraged by the forest of white crosses they have 
caused to be planted in Europe, work for that day 
when they may see even more American dead than 
there now are in France, even as the harvest ex- 
ceeds the sowing. 



vi FOREWORD 

I have, therefore, again changed my mind, and 
have recorded here my observations and conclu- 
sions as a modest contribution to popular com- 
prehension of our effort, its difficulties, its limi- 
tations and its achievements, so that another gen- 
eration as untrained, unorganized and unarmed 
as we were may not have to face an enemy under 
the fearful handicaps we suffered. 

Robert R. McCoemick. 

November 1919. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword v 

CHAPTER 

I The Background of the Army ... 1 

II The Inspired Ambassador 29 

III Early Days of the A. E. F 39 

IV The Great Division 58 

V Germany's Last Offensive 91 

VI A Few Technical Points 112 

VII The Pursuit from the Marne . . . 145 

VIII The American Offensives 155 

IX Some Elements of National Defense . 195 

X New Weapons and Their Use . . . 207 

XI The General Staff 231 

XII The Crime of Silence 244 

XIII The Only Solution 253 



THE ARMY OF 1918 

CHAPTER I 

THE BACKGKOUND OF THE ARMY 

In January of 1917 Germany decided to risk 
war with us because she thought that we were 
more formidable to her success as a neutral than 
we would be as an enemy. 

As a neutral we kept her from making the 
maximum use of her submarines ; as an enemy we 
could only try to. If her submarines were suc- 
cessful, she had nothing to fear from our mil- 
itary power; if unsuccessful, as after months of 
effort on her part and anxiety on ours they turned 
out to be, she still felt no apprehension of dan- 
ger from our land forces. 

She had watched the efforts made in America 
for a more powerful army; she had seen Presi- 
dent Wilson tentatively adopt the idea and had 
seen him abandon it ; she had observed a secretary 

of war (Garrison) who was committed to it jetti- 

1 



^ THE ARMY OF 1918 

soned and replaced by a pacifist (Baker) who car- 
ried Ohio for Mr. Wilson's reelection in 1916, on 
the watchword ^*He kept ns out of war!*' 

She had just witnessed a demonstration of our 
military impotence in the mobilization of all our 
armed forces on the Rio Grande to resist the pro- 
jected Mexican invasion. 

Any German who fought against us in 1918 
and who reads the German secret service reports 
on our 1916 farce must believe that we had been 
deliberately fooling the observers. 

Germany also knew that the Military Affairs 
Committee of the House of Representatives was 
controlled by a clique that would — as it did — ^put 
every obstacle in the way of military improve- 
ment. She knew that never in our history had we 
organized an army fit to take the field in less than 
two years. She knew, and in this particular she 
was entirely right, that we did not have and 
could not manufacture arms for an army of de- 
cisive size during the months she expected to 
employ in winning the war on land. 

Germany knew, likewise, that the only organ- 
ized forces in America, the Regular Army and the 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 3 

National Guard, were antagonistic. The ancient 
quarrel between them and the new elements of 
friction which would arise in the development of 
the new mobilization could be expected to militate 
against our efforts in the field. 

Since this domestic military antagonism has 
continued throughout the war and is now one of 
the chief obstacles to a safe military policy, it is 
desirable to outline its history, which began long 
before that of the nation, in an effort to find a 
solution that will bring harmony and efficiency 
into our army councils. 

Antagonism on the part of the people toward a 
regular army comes to us from English history. 
After Cromwell overthrew King Charles I. and 
Parliament, he ruled for a quarter of a century, 
a military despot crushing all opposition with the 
sword. Upon the Restoration, Parliament re- 
sisted all the efforts of Charles II. to establish a 
new regular army; this resistance was only partly 
successful. 

James II. increased the military forces of his 
brother; used them to suppress the insurrection 
under Monmouth, and followed the military vie- 



4 THE ARMY OF 1918 

tory at Sedgemoor with a bloody persecution that 
is still remembered with horror. 

To overthrow James II., William III. had to 
bring with him from Holland a mercenary force 
of Dutch and Swedes, whose unpopularity is pre- 
served to us by the meaning attached to the word 
'^blackguard'' — the name (Black Guard) of one 
of his household regiments. 

The vicissitudes of the mother country were not 
felt acutely in the colonies, but the refugees of all 
parties that crossed to America brought with 
them their political opinions and their grievances, 
and among these we find a fixed hostility towards 
*'the regulars." 

Frontier life in the new country made it neces- 
sary for men to acquire skill in arms and reintro- 
duced the condition of armed freeman, of which 
increasing civilization had deprived the old coun- 
try. To defend themselves against the Indians, 
the colonials had to organize military forces. 

In the French and Indian wars, British regular 
troops were sent to America and colonial militia 
were enrolled by the several colonies, particularly 
in New England. The regulars and colonials 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY B 

were never congenial allies; ill feeling existed 
on both sides. The resentment of the colo- 
nials was accentuated by a regulation which 
made the most junior officer of the King's army- 
senior to every officer in the colonial forces. It 
was because of this regulation that Colonel 
George Washington retired from active military 
duty until he returned to fight against his former 
associates. 

One may properly speculate upon how far this 
regulation was responsible for the Revolution. 
Merchants were vexed at taxation, lawyers were 
indignant at the continuous violation of natural 
rights, legislators resented unjustified and arro- 
gant interference with their powers. But what 
could all these have done if the colonial soldiers 
had not been willing to fight their recent com- 
rades? 

It is interesting to note that the shadow of this 
regulation, strangely incorporated into our serv- 
ice, is today one of the causes of hostility be- 
tween officers of the American regular army and 
officers of the other corps. 

The American Revolutionary war was a conflict 



6 THE ARMY OF 1918 

between the regular army of England and the 
colonial militia of the French and Indian wars, 
although the British were reinforced by German 
mercenaries, and the Americans by French regu- 
lars and by German, Polish and French officers, 
who entered the American service as soldiers of 
fortune. 

Necessities of space prevent any extended dis- 
cussion of this war, but two important features 
challenge our attention : First, the regular troops 
generally outfought the militia; and, second, the 
militia generals, risen in a field of free competi- 
tion, generally outmaneuvered the generals who 
came into authority by the routine of the British 
regular army. 

Also, it is a significant coincidence of this war 
that the American admiral, the greatest naval 
man America ever produced, came into the navy 
from the merchant service. 

After the formation of our nation, President 
Washington endeavored to formulate a national 
military policy. He had observed the breakdown 
of the British regulars and he had seen the fal- 
lacy of the untrained militia. 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY T 

Recognizing that officers must be chosen for 
ability and activity rather than for length of 
service, he had mortally offended his old friend, 
General Knox, at the time of the expected war 
with France, by not appointing him one of the 
lieutenant generals because of advanced age. 
Had Washington installed a permanent military 
policy for the United States we should have 
avoided many of our subsequent defeats and 
heavy losses of life. 

Unfortunately, after Washington the leader- 
ship of the nation was taken by a word man 
(Thomas Jefferson) who never had entered a 
battle and never intended to, and who, in playing 
fast and loose with our military system, exercised 
the same freedom that characterizes all slackers 
and pacifists. He made of the army a constab- 
ulary to garrison objectionable army posts, and he 
fastened upon it a character which has limited its 
efficiency to the present day. 

In 1812 there was no regular force adequate to 
conduct a war. There was no such militia as cap- 
tured Louisburg and Havana and defended 
Bunker Hill. As a consequence, Detroit, Buf- 



8 THE ARMY OF 1918 

falo and Washington were captured and burned, 
while New Orleans was saved to the nation only 
through the genius of Andrew Jackson. 

The battle of New Orleans was one of those 
rare fights where undisciplined troops have van- 
quished regulars. The reason for this is that they 
were led by a man whose talents approached 
genius, while the British regular troops were com- 
manded by a man who, notwithstanding twenty 
years' campaigning under England's greatest 
living general, could not learn the principles of 
war. A wrong lesson is likely to be learned from 
this battle — namely, that raw troops are equal to 
veterans. The correct lesson is that a general 
promoted according to the routine of a regular 
army threw away the advantage he held in com- 
manding a trained army. 

Thirty-four years after the battle of New Or- 
leans the United States fought a war with Mexico 
which had a character all its own among American 
wars, in that it was a war brought on by our Gov- 
ernment, and not a war in which the people as a 
whole were vitally interested. 

By order of President James K. Polk, the regu- 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARIMY 9 

lar army was concentrated on the Mexican fron- 
tier in January of 1846. It moved upon Mexico in 
September, forced Mexico into war, attacked and 
invariably defeated the Mexican armies. It was 
a war of conquest, like the European wars of the 
previous century, and, like them, was conducted, 
for the greater part, by a professional army. As 
a military and political venture it was completely 
successful. 

But it entailed political consequences not at all 
to the fancy of its creators. One of the success- 
ful generals, Zachary Taylor, was elected Presi- 
dent of the United States, and the other, Winfield 
Scott, became a constant candidate, endeavoring 
to attract popular support by a display of mili- 
tary pomp. Whatever popularity might have ac- 
crued to the regular army from its successful con- 
duct of the war, it was dissipated by the attempts 
of its most successful leader to capitalize in the 
political arena its achievements on the field of 
battle. 

Largely in consequence of this the army was 
again reduced to the status of a constabulary and 
posted along the Indian frontier west of Kansas 



10 THE ARMY OF 1918 

and in the territory newly acquired from Mexico. 
Its officers had the benefit of an able primary edu- 
cation at West Point academy, but after gradua- 
tion were left to shift for themselves for any fur- 
ther learning. 

Many volumes of military history have been 
written about our Civil war; but little emphasis 
has been laid upon the extraordinary political 
conditions at the time the war began. Early his- 
torians assumed that their readers were fully in- 
formed of these facts. Military critics have 
merely ignored them. No military lessons can be 
drawn, however, without recognizing the compel- 
ling political considerations. 

During the years immediately preceding seces- 
sion, the national government of the United 
States was in the hands of the future secession- 
ists. The leader of rebellion in 1861, Jefferson 
Davis, was in 1857 the Secretary of War of the 
United States. The President of the United 
States in 1861, Abraham Lincoln, belonged to a 
party which was in the minority in 1860. 

The military revolution attempted by the South 
in April, 1861, was preceded by a political revo- 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 11 

Intion in 1860. War was declared, in effect, by 
the southern states by their resolutions of seces- 
sion before Lincoln became president and while 
the administration was unwilling to oppose or in- 
terfere with armed rebellion. 

In its inception the war for the preservation 
of the Union was, therefore, exactly opposite in 
character to the war for conquest in the southwest 
in 1846. 

In the earlier combat the Government of the 
nation used its existing military force to over- 
come a weak neighbor. In the present case, the 
Government of the nation had to use such ele- 
ments of the nation as would support it to over- 
come the rebellious sections. 

The new administration had no knowledge of 
military affairs; it did not know the officers of 
the army, and, in the early days, when many distin- 
guished officers were violating their oaths of loy- 
alty, it did not even know which ones it could 
trust. 

Where the reg-ular army moved into Mexico in 
1846 in mere obedience to orders, without any con- 
viction of right and with no stronger incentive 



12 THE ARMY OF 1918 

than professional ambition, the Union army of 
1861 was composed entirely of men inspired by 
the most lofty convictions, but with little, if any, 
feeling of a legal obligation to fight. 

If the army of 1846 may be compared to the 
armies of Richelieu and Louis XIV., the army of 
1861 was like the original army of Cromwell, and, 
like the Cromwellian army, its officers were chosen 
for the force of their moral leadership and not 
from any conception of the military skill needed 
to lead men into battle. 

The Union troops were raised by states, and 
commissions up to the rank of colonel were is- 
sued by governors. Generals at the beginning 
were appointed largely upon the recommendation 
of loyal congressmen. 

Armies were thrown into action within a few 
weeks of the original assembly of the men and, 
naturally, disasters resulted. 

The antagonism which had characterized the 
cooperation between the British regulars and the 
colonials reappeared between the American regu- 
lars and the American volunteers. There was a 
great deal of fault on both sides. Without train- 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY IS 

ing or experience, no civilian, howsoever able, is 
ready to perform the duties of a high ranking 
officer. Inevitably, therefore, civilians appointed 
to high rank at the beginning of the war failed in 
the field. On the other hand, many civilians de- 
veloped into excellent generals. 

Mere training and experience, however, will 
not fit a dull man for high command; and many 
regular officers, who were given their appoint- 
ments for no better reason than that they had 
received preliminary education at West Point, 
failed as dismally as the amateurs. 

If it justly may be charged against the volun- 
teers that they caused generals to be made who 
were without the requisite training, it also may 
be charged against the regulars that they caused 
generals to be retained after they had proven 
their unfitness. 

The most glaring example of this sort was that 
of General Sherman, who removed the brilliant 
and capable Logan and replaced him with the de- 
feated and discredited Howard. This mistake of 
Sherman ^s was fully recognized by Grant, but 
the injury had been done. 



14 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Logan, as vindictive as he was brilliant, for 
years afterwards was the leader in the Senate of 
the '' volunteer*' faction against the ** regulars'' 
and contributed much to perpetuate the feud be- 
tween the services. 

Stripped of hostility and prejudice, it is not 
difficult to assign the regular army to its proper 
place in the preservation of the Union, to point 
out its limitations, and to show where the volun- 
teer system did help decisively in the victory. 

The regular army was the national reservoir 
of military knowledge. All volunteers had to go 
to it to learn the elements of military conduct. 
The regular army furnished an indispensable 
framework around which the conquering armies 
were built. It furnished most of the successful 
officers of high rank, and the greatest soldiers 
produced by the war had, at some period of their 
lives, served in it. 

It did not, however, as an organization per 5e, 
produce the victorious commander nor his prin- 
cipal lieutenants. 

It is customary to look upon General Ulysses 
S. Grant as an officer of the regular army. The 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 15 

regular army claims him from the volunteers. 
Yet he entered the war in spite of the regular 
army; and the regular army today would fight 
bitterly against permitting another officer to rise 
to power as he rose. 

Grant was graduated from the West Point 
Military Academy and served for several years 
before the Mexican campaign as an officer of in- 
fantry. In that campaign he displayed excep- 
tional brilliancy, a brilliancy which ought to have 
received instant recognition but did not. It is 
a congenital fault of our regular army to fail to 
recognize exceptional conduct. Shortly after the 
Mexican war he resigned from the army. Rumor 
says that intemperance was the cause. There is 
no evidence to indicate that the regular army 
made any effort to save for itself the hero of San 
Cosme church and the future savior of the Union. 

With the outbreak of the Civil war Grant 
sought employment from General George B. Mc- 
Clellan, commander-in-chief of the Union forces, 
and a regular army man. He got no answers to 
his letters, nor did he obtain so much as an inter- 
view. 



16 THE ARMY OF 1918 

He went to work in the office of the Adjutant 
General of the state of Illinois, and was appointed 
colonel of an Illinois regiment by Governor 
Yates of Illinois. He was afterwards ap- 
pointed brigadier general by President Lincoln 
at the unanimous request of the Illinois congress- 
men. Thus, the volunteer service supplied that 
which the regular service denied — opportunity to 
genius. 

Placed by accident in a locality which did not 
interest those in authority, he marched from vic- 
tory to victory while the regular army generals 
were adding defeat to defeat. After each victory 
his command was taken away from him, and he 
was left unemployed until the failure of his suc- 
cessor compelled the reemployment of the genius. 

Eventually, he brought to the Union arms the 
most complete triumph in the history of war ; and 
today military writers who rave over the 
marches, even the failures, of lesser men are busy 
trying to explain away the victories of a leader 
whose rise was so unorthodox. 

If there was a Grant, a Napoleon, or a Marl- 
borough in the recent world war, he was not 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 17 

allowed to rise. The regular army system of sup- 
pressing brilliant men who might surpass all 
their seniors was sufficiently in vogue in all the 
belligerent countries from 1914 to 1918. 

The close of the Civil war left us with a splen- 
did organization, and with a realization of the 
necessity of allowing native ability free play, as 
well as of the value of military training. 

No adequate military legislation resulted, how- 
ever, and the regular army went back to chasing 
Indians. 

The nation in 1865 felt supremely strong in the 
possession of a million trained soldiers, thousands 
of trained officers, and generals of the highest 
order. This feeling lasted long after the soldiers 
had passed military age. A few of the volunteer 
regiments maintained their organization, but with 
a character in which the social and political fea- 
tures gained ground at the expense of the mili- 
tary. 

After the Civil war military drill was taught in 
schools and colleges ; but this decreased every year 
and passed out of existence about the time of the 
outbreak of the war with Spain. 



18 THE ARMY OF 1918 

The Spamsh war again bears a character en- 
tirely different from all our other wars. It was 
a spontaneous crusade to end Spanish misrule in 
Cuba and was brought about by the insistence of 
public opinion. 

Neither the administration of President Cleve- 
land, which left office in the Spring of 1897, nor 
that of President McKinley, which succeeded, de- 
sired or anticipated such a conflict. The regular 
army was small, unorganized, ill-equipped, and 
commanded by men whom advanced age had de- 
prived of their once not insignificant military 
powers. 

Enthusiasm for the war with Spain was intense. 
Volunteers offered themselves much faster than 
the military authorities could prepare to accept 
them, and a form of organization was adopted 
similar to that of the Union army in the Civil war. 
President McKinley took advantage of the oppor- 
tunity to conciliate the southern states by ap- 
pointing to high command old men who in their 
youth had been prominent in the armies of the 
Confederacy. 

Events, however, took all initiative out of the 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 19 

hands of the Government. Admiral Sampson 
blockaded the fleet of Admiral Cervera in the 
harbor of Santiago, Cuba, and demanded military 
forces to drive it to sea. Hardly had the army, 
comprised almost entirely of regular troops, suc- 
ceeded in this, when yellow fever threatened it 
with extinction. From this it was rescued by the 
forcefulness of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, who, 
overcoming the inertia of regular channels, com- 
pelled the removal of the expedition to Long 
Island. 

Meantime, Admiral Dewey's victory of May, 
1898, in Manila Bay had led to complications both 
with native insurrectionary forces and with Ger- 
many which made necessary the sending of an 
expedition across the Pacific. This expedition, 
made up nearly altogether of volunteers from the 
western states, armed with old-fashioned rifles, 
was successful in capturing the city of Manila 
from the Spaniards, and, later, in defeating a 
native army which attacked the Americans. 

The vast majority of the volunteers in the Span- 
ish war were never engaged, but were concen- 
trated in training camps without adequate equip- 



20 THE ARMY OF 1918 

ment or organization where they suffered the 
ravages of disease. 

Five officers developed ''.onspicnons abilities in 
these struggles — ^Wood, Eoosevelt, Bell, Funston 
and Pershing — three of them volunteers and two 
captains in the regular army. 

Although successful in every campaign, it was 
recognized that the American army was grossly 
inefficient. 

From the close of the Spanish-Philippine war, 
therefore, dates the improvement in our military 
services which contributed to Americans being 
able, at the decisive moment, to put into the field 
enough battle-worthy troops to turn the defeat 
of the allies into victory; and this in spite of a 
weak administration at Washington. This im- 
provement was the achievement of the soldiers 
themselves, the secretaries of war, and the vol- 
unteer spirit of our militia. No other statesmen, 
except President Eoosevelt, himself a soldier, 
ever helped. 

In the regular army the leadership was as- 
sumed by men who had won high rank in Cuba 
and the Philippines. They gathered about them, 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 21 

in important staff positions, officers of demon- 
strated fitness, althougli they could not advance 
them over slothful and stupid ones because of the 
seniority law. For the first time in our history, 
however, the framework of a general staff was 
formed. A war college was established in Wash- 
ington for the study of military problems ; schools 
were opened for instruction in the technical de- 
tails of army duties, ranging from horseshoeing 
and baking to artillery practice and logistics. 
Real progress was made in acquiring technique, 
and with it came a corresponding rise in morale. 
These steps were not taken without opposition. 
The army figures largely in the expenditures of 
government. The beneficiaries were long accus- 
tomed to their profit. To improve the old army 
meant to disturb many of these powerful and 
greedy recipients of congressional appropriations. 
Progress also disturbed the lazy and the incom- 
petent among the officers. These like certain ad- 
mirals of the present day struck hands with the 
profiteers and furnished '^expert testimony '^ 
against all reforms. Improvement became harder 



9.9. THE ARMY OF 1918 

and harder and practically stopped after Roose- 
velt left the White House. 

In the meanwhile the National Guard was pro- 
ceeding no less sincerely in its more modest 
sphere. 

When the regiments of volunteers were reor- 
ganized after the Spanish war only men of mili- 
tary bent remained. A strong desire for better- 
ment existed, but the state governments furnished 
little financial and no educational help. Troops 
commissioned by the states, with commendable 
inconsistency, appealed to the national govern- 
ment for aid. The government, by acts of Con- 
gress, thereupon began to furnish uniforms, rifles 
and instructors, and, in return, has kept a certain 
check upon the numbers and efficiency of state 
troops. 

Unfortunately, the relations between the Na- 
tional Guard and the Regular Army again as- 
sumed the character of their ancient grudge. The 
soldierly element did not rise in the National 
Guard Association. The National Guard gen- 
erals were, for the most part, politicians, and 
politicians who belittled the knowledge and pur- 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 23 

poses of professional soldiers to conceal their 
own ignorance, an example which, it is worth 
noting, was followed in 1918 by certain regulars 
who were unable to grasp the modern tactics of 
their French instructors, and who sought to hide 
their incapacity with a similar abuse of learning. 

The Regular Army, for its part, did its work 
grudgingly because it objected to the recognition 
of any military organization except its own. In 
spite of all obstacles, many National Guard offi- 
cers and organizations absorbed much of the 
knowledge the regulars had to teach, and with 
this knowledge attained a degree of discipline and 
organization hitherto unknown in militia troops 
in time of peace. 

The Philippine insurrection and the Boxer out- 
break in China in 1900 kept the army before the 
public eye for a short while. Domestic problems 
became acute, and military affairs were left to 
army officers, national guardsmen, and the War 
Department, and by all of these they were at- 
tended to with a devotion for which the nation 
may well feel a deep and lasting gratitude. 

Neither the Russo-Japanese war in Manchuria 



24 THE ARMY OF 1918 

in 1904-5, nor the Italian-Turkish war in 1910, 
nor the wars in the Balkans in 1911-13, 
created much stir in America. It was not until 
the great war broke out in Europe in 1914 that the 
public agitated itself about military affairs, and 
then, unfortunately, to little purpose. There was 
an element in the nation, inconsiderable in num- 
bers but strong in organization, in platform speak- 
ers, in writers and in financial backing which, com- 
posed of men who determined that under no cir- 
cumstances would they ever fight for their coun- 
try, devoted itself to preventing the men that 
would fight from being given a fair chance for 
their lives and for victory. The pacifists were 
against any plan for national defense and, of 
course, against whatever plan at the moment 
seemed likely to receive congressional sanction. 

This opposition would have been swept aside, 
however, but that the Regular Army and the Na- 
tional Guard failed to agree upon a method for 
increasing the military efficiency of the nation. 

In 1911 a federal appropriation had been pro- 
vided which furnished funds for such units of the 
National Guard as measured up to standards es- 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 25 

tablished by the Regular Army. The measure 
which carried this appropriation designated the 
National Guard as the second line of defense of 
the Union, to be mobilized before volunteers 
should be called for. 

In 1915 the Secretary of War, Lindley M. Gar- 
rison, introduced a bill creating an army to be 
known as the *' Continental Army,'' to be organ- 
ized among civilians under the direction of the 
Regular Army, with junior officers from the Re- 
serve Corps. The new army was to take prece- 
dence over the National Guard. This measure was 
vigorously opposed by the National Guard and 
was never pushed to passage. Its only effect was 
to revive and increase the animosity between the 
regular and non-regular services. 

In 1915 Major General Leonard Wood, then 
commanding the eastern department, with head- 
quarters in New York, organized a volunteer 
training camp at Piatt sburg, N. Y. The plan met 
with instantaneous and enthusiastic success. 
Camps were established in other parts of the 
country, and in the following year an appropria- 



26 THE ARMY OF 1918 

tion was obtained from Congress to defray the 
expenses of the student-officers. 

Colleges also renewed their interest in military 
drill, and, acting under the National Guard act, 
organized various units for the training of the 
students. 

The greatest advance toward national prepar- 
edness, however, came about, not through the ef- 
forts of any American, but through the initiative 
of President Carranza of Mexico. 

If Jena made the German army great, and if 
Sedan did the same for the French, the mobiliza- 
tion of 1916 made the Ajnerican army of 1918 pos- 
sible. Up to June, 1916, our administration had 
refused to take any military steps in contempla- 
tion of our difficult relations with Mexico. Early 
in that month General Funston's secret service in- 
tercepted a Mexican order to raid the states of 
New Mexico and Arizona and to invade Texas in 
force, capture San Antonio, and, in conjunction 
with the Mexican population, reannex the south- 
western states of our country to Mexico. Panic 
ensued in Washington, and the entire National 



THE BACKGROUND OF THE ARMY 27 

Guard was ordered to muster immediately and 
proceed to the Mexican border. 

Unless it was in 1898, never before was dis- 
played such utter lack of organization and mili- 
tary preparedness. German and Mexican secret 
service operatives might well have reported to 
their superiors that America was as incapable 
of military action as China. 

The demonstration was not only sufficient, how- 
ever, to deter the Mexicans from proceeding in 
their plans, but it had other far-reaching effects. 
It startled the people and the administration into 
a realization of our actual weakness. It showed 
up the manifold deficiencies of our administration, 
and, thanks to General Funston and the system of 
training he installed among all the troops in his 
command, it formed the cadres which saved us 
in 1918; for in the flotsam and jetsam of this 
wretched affair were the formations which were 
to furnish storm troops in the hour of need. 

It is a strange fact, however, that when it found 
itself at war with Germany the Eegular army did 
not want to use the organized forces of the Na- 
tional Guard it had done so much to prepare. 



fS THE ARMY OF 1918 

Rather, it would begin with hordes of untrained 
men. It asserted with great obstinacy that the 
only function of National Guard troops was to 
guard munition factories and railroad bridges 
and, taking advantage of a panic over German 
plots, got them safely out of the way and out of 
training and doing such work as Clausewitz, a 
German general staff officer of a century ago, as- 
signed to the Landsturm. 

The National Guard, for its part, organized in 
different states in units of battalions, regiments 
and brigades — there were even two divisions — 
wanted to enter the national service intact. 

The mobilization of 1916 improved the feeling 
between the two services, but did not heal the 
breach. Unhappily, after two years of bloody 
war, it remains open. 



CHAPTER n 

THE INSPIRED AMBASSADOB 

For some months after the declaration of war 
on April 6, 1917, the German calculations ap- 
peared correct. America had entered the war 
without any idea of how she was to wage it. The 
nation was not unanimously for the war. The ad- 
ministration let weeks pass without any effort to 
get ready for the stupendous consequences of the 
course it had adopted. 

Among those who had been clamoring for war, 
a great number argued that its conduct would 
merely require our sending the fleet to tighten 
the blockade, putting an embargo on all exports 
which might reach Germany through neutral 
channels, and financing the allied nations in arms 
against her. Others demanded that a volunteer 
army should be sent to France and suggested as 
its commander Colonel Roosevelt, the only man in 
sight who could raise such a force. Recruits were 
insufficient to fill either the Regular army or the 

29 



30 THE ARMY OF 1918 

National Guard. The enthusiasm which brought 
on and characterized the war with Spain was lack- 
ing. America had considered victory for the 
allies as practically certain after the battle of 
the Marne, and war was declared in this belief. 

Then, after our declaration of war, Germany 
won the great victory of the Spring of 1917. The 
British and French had hoped to win a decisive 
battle by a joint offensive. Hindenburg maneu- 
vered from before the British attack, and inflicted 
a frightful repulse upon General Nivelle, who had 
replaced the cautious and successful Joffre. At 
the same time it began to appear that the Rus- 
sian revolution, hailed with delight, if not actually 
fomented, by the allies, was taking an unexpected 
turn and that the Russian pressure in the east 
would be withdrawn. From the threshold of vic- 
tory the allies felt themselves on the brink of de- 
feat. France decided that American assistance 
had become imperative and sent Field Marshal 
Joffre, victor of the Marne, to get it. 

Of all the strangers who ever came to our 
shore Joffre exercised the greatest influence 
over our people and upon our destiny. He cap- 



THE INSPIRED AMBASSADOR 31 

tured public opinion at once, and the people im- 
posed his recommendations upon Congress, Presi- 
dent, and army alike. His appearance was so 
venerable, his manner so simple, his statements of 
facts so devoid of artifice and revealing condi- 
tions so appalling that the nation was stirred to 
its soul. 

He told us that France was on the verge of col- 
lapse. A force of troops must be sent immedi- 
ately to restore the shattered national morale. 
After these must follow an army of gigantic size. 
He assured us that our volunteer system, then 
under consideration, never could provide the num- 
ber of troops needed in this war; nor could our 
army, employing the tactics taught in our drill 
regulations, exist in the face of the war-trained 
German army, equipped with arms the Americans 
had never even seen. France would furnish 
everything she had in equipment, in designs for 
arms, and in instruction. He gave to our ord- 
nance department the secret plans of the famous 
.75 field piece. 

At first the American authorities attempted to 
impose a censorship upon his utterances. The 



aa THE ARMY OF 1918 

text of his first public speech was edited by his 
American military aide, who eliminated his opin- 
ions upon American military organizations. 
Hearers who understood French supplied the 
missing fragments of his speech to the press, and 
the field marshal constantly repeated them in his 
private conversations. 

Suddenly the nation realized that it had entered 
a fight which threatened its very existence. 

From that moment the American people formed 
a cohesion of purpose such as never had existed 
in our national life and which lasted throughout 
the war. The administration and Congress 
marched with public opinion. 

The pacifists, the anti-Americans, those who 
had fought national preparedness in Congress, 
were for the moment overwhelmed. The Draft act, 
one of the great milestones in our national evolu- 
tion, and one that future historians will class with 
the drawing up of the Constitution and the preser- 
vation of the Union, was passed. Every young 
American was made liable to fight for his country, 
and, therefore, every parent became interested in 



THE INSPIRED AMBASSADOR 33 

seeing him properly trained, properly equipped 
and properly led. 

There remained to decide the status of the Regu- 
lar army and the National Guard. The former 
wished to disband the latter. The latter wished 
to enter service under the terms of legislation 
then in force. A compromise was reached. The 
National Guard, in its existing organization, 
was mustered into the federal service, but its 
officers were reduced to the status of reserve offi- 
cers. This provision was not acceptable to the 
National Guard, but was strongly championed by 
the Training Camps association, an organization 
of men who had been training for reserve com- 
missions under the direction of the Regular army. 

With the splendid achievements of the national 
guardsmen ever fresh in mind, it is pleasant to 
look back on the unselfish patriotism which im- 
bued them. They offered themselves for war; 
they fought to go to war; they gave up long- 
standing privileges to go to war ; and they allowed 
themselves to be placed under the control of the 
Regular army, which they did not believe would 
give them even fair treatment. When the War 



34 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Department later announced that National Guard 
cavalry was not to be sent to Europe, regiments 
of this arm voluntarily transferred into the artil- 
lery, although the artillery service at that time 
was believed to require such technique that only 
men of long training could officer it. 

The National Guard had been accused of too 
much politics. Under pressure it showed its ca- 
pacity for perfect military sacrifice. 

In four weeks from the arrival of Marshal 
Joffre, Congress by legislation had provided 
for the expansion of the Regular army, for 
the enrollment of the National Guard, and for a 
national army to be composed entirely of drafted 
men. The draft was also to fill up vacancies in the 
Regular army and National Guard and furnish 
replacements for casualties. Four kinds of officers 
were provided: Officers of the Regular army, 
officers of the National Guard, officers of the Re- 
serve Corps, and officers of the National army. 
This last class might be composed of civilians be- 
yond the age limitations for reserve officers or of 
regular officers promoted for the emergency to 
higher rank. 



THE INSPIRED AMBASSADOR 35 

Much credit is due to studious officers of the 
Regular army in drafting these bills, and also 
severe blame for two inexcusable provisions: 
(1) that where two officers are of the same grade, 
if one holds a lower commission in the Regular 
army he shall be deemed senior, even though his 
commission in the higher grade is the more re- 
cent (a survival of the rule in the French and 
Indian wars which made all officers of the British 
army superior to colonial officers) ; (2) that offi- 
cers of the National Guard, Reserve Corps, and 
National Army could be deprived of their com- 
missions for incompetence, upon fhe recommenda- 
tion of a board of officers, while officers of the 
Regular army were exempt from this ruling. The 
distinction was this: incompetent officers of the 
temporary services could be discharged, but in- 
competent officers of the Regular army could not ! 

The Draft act will pass into history as the out- 
standing legislative achievement of the war. Fol- 
lowing a long dominance in our national life of a 
faction of weak national feeling and of centrifugal 
propaganda, the Draft act asserted the supremacy 
of the nation over all its citizens to an extent that 



36 THE ARMY OF 1918 

even our federalist and unionist ancestors had not 
attempted. 

But if the Draft act was the most important 
feature of the struggle, surely the officers' train- 
ing camps were the most romantic. 

Fifty thousand of the best youths of the nation 
assembled at the selected places to undergo hard 
training, severe and competitive examination, and 
then the rigors of war. At this time there was no 
draft act to evade, there were no rain-proof jobs 
on the horizon in Washington. The only hope of 
reward was a commission as a junior line officer, 
the most burdensome, as it is the most perilous, 
position in the army. 

The men of this first camp will ever occupy a 
pedestal that no other group of officers can reach. 

Eegular and National Guard officers, when they 
entered military service, faced no such certitude 
of hardship and danger. 

In the conduct of these schools the Eegular 
army rendered its greatest service in the war. 

While the shortness of the course did not permit 
much military instruction, nor, in fact, were our 
Regular officers fully equipped to instruct in mod- 



THE INSPIRED AMBASSADOR 57 

em war, they did impress upon their pupils 
their own unsurpassed sense of duty, of self- 
immolation, of rendering and exacting obedience. 
They taught the rigors of army life and demon- 
strated in camp the heart-breaking fatigue which 
it is the lot of every soldier to endure. 

The camps were tests rather than courses of 
instruction. The graduates were not trained offi- 
cers, but they were capable of becoming officers 
of the highest type. Early in the war some of 
them were sent to the front in regular divisions 
and given responsibilities that in normal times 
would not come upon officers of ten years ' experi- 
ence. A percentage failed, and under the iron 
rules which preservation of an unbroken front 
made indispensable these were relieved. The 
majority, however, served with great honor, and, 
it must be said, received too little recognition in 
comparison with their superior officers, whose 
rapid rise was largely due to their young sub- 
ordinates. 

Field Marshal Joffre's mission had borne fruit. 
America provided for a great army. In June it 
dispatched the First Division with Greneral 



38 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Persliing and his staff to encourage our allies 
while the gigantic army was being raised. 

In July the National Guard was called into the 
federal service, and in September the draft went 
into effect. All the well considered calculations 
of the Kaiser ^s government had crashed to the 
ground. 



CHAPTEE III 

EAKLY DAYS OF THE A. E. F. 

I WAS mustered into the federal service in May, 
1917, and reported to General Pershing in Paris 
in July. 

The wisdom of General Joffre's request for an 
American force to appear immediately in France 
was manifest at once. The morale of the French 
nation was at the breaking point. There even was 
a number of people whose despondency was so 
great that they resented the entry of America into 
the war because it would delay peace — a peace of 
defeat. 

The French censorship, in the interest of the 
commanding general, of course, had prevented any 
mention of the French defeat of April. The 
official announcement was, in the words of the 
first Napoleon, *^as false as an official dispatch." 
The German communiques had been suppressed 
by the allies. 

In consequence, France was the prey of exag- 

39 



40 THE ARMY OF 1918 

gerated rumors. The actual French losses in the 
April offensive were in the neighborhood of 
100,000, but rumor estimated them anywhere from 
double that number to 500,000. 

In defeat, the French always suspect treachery. 
The existence of censorship, of course, accentu- 
ated the suspicion, which, moreover, was not with- 
out foundation. Treachery existed in high places, 
and the censorship was used to protect it. 

We now know how Bolo Pasha was caught in 
America, and, upon evidence produced from 
America, was condemned and shot. We know that 
M. Malvy was tried and exiled, and M. Caillaux 
was convicted of serious charges. 

Of course, the American staff obtained this in- 
formation in advance of the general public. It 
knew of the murder of Ahnareyda on the day fol- 
lowing the crime. The story is not generally 
known and will bear telling here. 

Almareyda, an opium fiend and a man of suspi- 
cious life, but at the same time a confidant of high 
officials in the French republic, was arrested and 
almost immediately afterwards found dead in his 
cell. The prison doctors issued a certificate that 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A. E. F. 41 

he had died from an overdose of morphine, self- 
administered. Under French law the authorities 
retained jurisdiction over the body until it was 
placed in the grave. 

As soon as this was accomplished the nearest 
relative, who thereupon obtained the right of con- 
trol over the corpse, had it dug up and demon- 
strated to witnesses from marks on the neck and 
from an examination of the lungs that death haa 
come from strangulation. 

A so-called investigation was held and it was 
declared that Almareyda, in a fit of despondency, 
had hanged himself with his suspenders, and that 
the prison authorities had lied about the manner 
of his death to save themselves from the charge 
of carelessness. This story was in itself ren- 
dered doubly ridiculous by the fact that the sus- 
penders could hardly have supported the weight 
of the man and by the second fact that the highest 
support to which this peculiar hangman's noose 
could be attached was the head of the prison bed, 
some two and a half feet above the floor. The 
public was asked to believe that Almareyda hung 
himself lying down! 



42 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Publication of the crime, of course, was per- 
mitted only in versions sanctioned by the authori- 
ties. The story, as told here, is the one which 
came into the Intelligence Department of our Gen- 
eral Staff. It was generally believed that Alma- 
reyda had been murdered to prevent his betray- 
ing important accomplices. The names of those 
prominent officials were mentioned, but I do not 
recollect whether their names were placed in the 
records of our General Staff. 

About the same time Mati Hara, a woman of 
the half -world, was executed ; and it was believed 
that she was induced not to betray her accom- 
plices by promises that her life would be spared 
at the last moment, and that the death volley was 
fired before she understood the deception prac- 
ticed upon her. 

A movement was seriously projected to call a 
joint meeting of the Senate and Chamber of 
Deputies at Versailles. (When the Senate and 
Chamber meet in joint session at Versailles they 
automatically become a joint constitutional con- 
vention and parliament with unlimited powers.) 
The overthrow of the government and the re- 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A. E. F. 4S 

moval of President Poineare were contemplated. 

The object of the proposed convention was en- 
tirely patriotic; but it was gradually abandoned 
as the Eussian revolution developed into a reign 
of terror and a surrender to Germany. The posi- 
tion of the French government, however, gradu- 
ally became impossible and it was finally over- 
thrown by the terrific attacks of Georges Clemen- 
ceau. Publication of these attacks was absolutely 
forbidden by the censorship. French officials 
never mentioned them; yet they were known in 
Paris among American newspaper men, who 
brought the news to our General Staff. 

The staff, of course, came into possession of a 
large part of the secret history of the war. It 
learned the nature of the dual alliance between 
France and Russia; the terms of the military 
compact between France and England, under 
which England guaranteed an army to fight on 
the continent against Germany, France, in return, 
opening up to England the broad studies of her 
war college, studies which went far beyond any- 
thing dreamed of outside of the continent of Eu- 
rope, and even more profound than those of the 



44 THE ARMY OF 1918 

German general staff. The staff learned how, for 
some years before the war, Belgium had been 
irresolute, unable to make up her mind whether 
to join the alliance against Germany or to stand 
neutral. This vacillation, preventing the forma- 
tion of a plan to use French and British troops 
for the defense of the Belgian frontier, is respon- 
sible for Germany ^s easy conquest of the little 
country and the successful turning of the French 
left flank at Charleroi. 

We learned that before the beginning of hos- 
tilities Germany had asked Italy merely to mobil- 
ize troops on the French border and, in payment 
for such slight service, offered territory both on 
the French mainland and in Morocco. Italy re- 
fused to comply, saying that action on her part 
was not required under the terms of the Triple 
Alliance. On the other hand, she notified France 
of her intention to remain neutral, thus permit- 
ting France to concentrate against Germany the 
troops which, in the scheme for a general Euro- 
pean war, had been assigned to the Italian fron- 
tier. 

The general staff obtained the details of the 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A. E. F. 45 

various secret treaties between the allies, publica- 
tion of which during the peace conference caused 
such public commotion. The first treaty between 
England, Prance and Eussia for the partition of 
Turkey gave Persia, Palestine and Alexandretta 
to England, Syria to France, and Armenia and 
Constantinople to Eussia. It is likely that Bul- 
garia, learning of the disposition of Constanti- 
nople, which she coveted, was influenced thereby 
to join the Central powers. 

In order to draw Italy into the Entente, this 
treaty had to be modified ; and it had to be altered 
again to secure the support of Greece. All this 
information was forwarded by our general staff to 
Washington in the summer of 1917, and was avail- 
able to our State Department throughout our par- 
ticipation in the war. 

All the allied governments had military mis- 
sions in Eussia, exerting various kinds of in- 
fluence upon that government. From them we 
learned of the fast waning morale of the Eussian 
troops ; how the demagogue Kerensky was letting 
the nation rapidly drift into anarchy, and how the 
soldier Korniloff was striving desperately to pre- 



46 THE ARMY OF 1918 

serve discipline which would enable the army to 
stand before the Germans and prevent them from 
massing against the western front before the 
American army could be prepared. 

The reports of all the allied missions came into 
our hands. It is gratifying to note that those of 
the American attache were the clearest and the 
most prophetic. 

Each of the allied missions urged its govern- 
ment to exert every pressure for the support of 
Korniloff, our only hope in the military situation. 

Unfortunately, the allied governments were 
controlled by word men. They supported their 
fellow word man, Kerensky, and the Eussian front 
collapsed. 

One of the first acts of the United States upon 
entering the war was to place embargoes on ex- 
ports to countries trading with Germany. The 
British blockade had not been entirely effective in 
keeping American materials of various kinds from 
reaching Germany, and had been practically pow- 
erless in preventing Germany's neighbors from 
trading with her. The Scandinavian countries 
were absolutely dependent upon imports from the 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A. E. F. 47 

United States. They were now compelled to stop 
shipments of home products to Germany under 
penalty of an embargo on the necessities of life. 

The same methods of coercion were directed 
against Switzerland, but with most unexpected 
and, as we look back upon the occasion, ludicrous 
results. Switzerland replied that unless the allies 
furnished her with necessary foodstuffs she would 
open her frontier to the German army. At that 
time the allies were on the defensive, waiting for 
the American army, and the lengthening of the 
battle line was to be avoided at all costs. Our 
diplomats were compelled, therefore, to climb 
down as gracefully as they could, and food was 
brought across the submarine zone in bottoms 
sorely needed to carry troops and military sup- 
plies, and, as the Swiss would not even send their 
own railroad engines and cars to transport it from 
the ports to their frontier, the overworked French 
railroad equipment was taxed for this purpose. 

The French General Staff showed great loyalty 
to ours in furnishing us with copies of deciphered 
messages from the German wireless station in 
Spain informing the submarine commanders of 



48 THE ARMY OF 1918 

tHe location and course of our convoys. This was 
a real act of friendship, as the French staff was 
so anxious to keep secret the fact that it could 
decode the German dispatches that it had never 
given any decoded information to its other allies 
or even to its own navy. 

The one piece of information our allies did not 
offer us was the number of allied divisions that 
were engaged or in reserve on all fronts. We ob- 
,tained this information, but I consider the method 
by which it was done a military secret. 

At this time the Catholic party in Germany 
made secret proposals of peace, and shortly after- 
ward a public effort toward that end emanated 
from the Vatican. The German proposal was con- 
veyed by Herr Erzberger to Switzerland, and by 
him to French secret agents. The French Gen- 
eral Staff passed the word on to us. I do not 
know whether its terms were made public in 
America. They were as follows: 

Belgium was to be evacuated and compensated 
for damages. Invaded France was to be evacu- 
ated, but not compensated for damages. Alsace 
and Lorraine (German since 1870) were to be re- 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A. E. R 49 

turned to France, and Germany recompensed by- 
territory (not specified) in some other part of the 
world. German colonies were to be restored. The 
Austrian-Italian boundary and the eastern boun- 
daries were to be determined at a peace confer- 
ence. 

The officers assembled at General Pershing's 
headquarters were men who had distinguished 
themselves by long, continuous and arduous stud- 
ies at the schools which the army had formed. 
They had bought the military books of the re- 
nowned German military authorities, most of 
which had been translated into English by British 
officers. Officers conversant with the German lan- 
guage studied the originals, and other books which 
had not yet been translated. Thus they acquired 
a knowledge that had not been known to previous 
generations of American officers ; for if Napoleon 
exhausted the principles of strategy and tac- 
tics. Von Moltke and his school standardized ad- 
ministrative machinery and the staff system neces- 
sary to the conduct of large armies. 

My feeling on first meeting the staff was one of 
national pride ; but later, when I learned how these 



50 THE ARMY OF 1918 

men had equipped themselves for the task, I real- 
ized that while the nation should rejoice at having 
such men ready in her hour of need, she had no 
right to congratulate herself upon their achieve- 
ments. 

In European countries a great part of the ef- 
forts of government has been devoted to the 
efficiency of the army. In America the "Substan- 
tial efforts toward miUtary efficiency originated 
within tFe army and were carried on by the offi- 
cers without aid or encouragement from the 
nation. 

There was something professorial about these 
staff officers with General Pershing. Their lives 
had been devoted to study and they had had little 
opportunity to practice their theories. Accus- 
tomed to command small units, they were inex- 
perienced in the dispatch of business, because the 
army frowns severely on minor mistakes of ad- 
ministration and offers little reward for positive 
accomplishment. This explains the friction that 
arose everywhere between army officers and busi- 
ness men drafted into the army. The soldiers 
failed to keep pace with the rapidity of adminis- 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A. E. F. 61 

tration to wMch the business men had been edu- 
cated in the school of commercial competition. 

The work to which this General Statf addressed 
itself was the greatest that ever confronted any 
similar body of men. It had to equip the army 
with weapons and ammunition, and, as the event 
turned out, it had to produce more than half of 
all the other supplies. It had to study not only 
the developments which had come in this war but 
also the phenomena of European warfare, which 
are very different from those with which Ameri- 
can soldiers had become familiar. 

All our wars had been fought in sparsely in- 
habited territories, with little artificial shelter 
against the weather, and with few and bad roads. 
The billeting of large numbers of troops in the 
Civil war would have been impossible for lack of 
houses; and the principle of billeting had never 
been accepted in America. In France, the mul- 
titude of villages furnished cover for all soldiers 
not on the firing line; the dividing of organiza- 
tions into proper numbers for shelter in the vari- 
ous towns and their reassembly for the march had 
to be learned by the Americans. 



52 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Ever since tlie time of the Romans, roads in 
France have been built with an eye to military use. 
The capacity of these roads to carry troops and 
their supplies had been studied for centuries. Bat- 
tlefields have been fought over time and again, 
and have furnished encyclopedias of military in- 
formation for European soldiers; and most of 
this was unknown to us. 

The difference in the weather, the absence of 
severe cold, the presence everywhere of water, 
the defensible character of the masonry build- 
ings, even the shape of the ground, the color of 
the landscape and the refractions of light — 
these were alien to our experience. All this had 
to be learned while ports of debarkation, supply 
depots and railroads were built. Finally, the 
personal relationship between our forces and 
those of our allies had to be built up, and misun- 
derstandings and European jealousies overcome. 

The French and British governments were in- 
tensely jealous of each other. A veritable contest 
arose between them for the control of their new, 
great and unmeasured ally. In the early years of 
the war American ambassadors had been clay in 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A. E. F. 53 

the hands of European diplomats. They expected 
American generals to be the same. They did not 
doubt that the American command would be con- 
trolled — the question which agitated their minds 
was, by whom would it be controlled? The Eng- 
lish held the great advantage of a common lan- 
guage and their instinctive ability in the selection 
of men for international conferences. They also 
held control of the sea, and owned the shipping 
upon which the American army must cross. 

Against this, in the first instance, the French 
could only oppose the fact that the war was in 
France and that all transportation had to be on 
French roads and railroads. 

With some abruptness the French high com- 
mand placed the American sector as far as pos- 
sible from the seacoast, and separated the Amer- 
icans by hundreds of miles of French troops from 
the English. 

Early in the war, the Americans would have 
preferred to train with the English and to go into 
line with and beside the English. \This, however, 
the French obstinately forbade. They were un- 
willing to contemplate the two English speaking 



64 THE ARMY OF 1918 

nations so closely allied. They were, perhaps, also 
unwilling to give the American army a too easy 
line of retreat to the seacoast in the event of a 
lost battle. That their last decision was well 
taken will never be questioned by any American 
soldier who was in the active army after March 
21st, 1918, when it looked as if a German success 
would pen the American troops against the Alps 
and when the British army, falling back on the 
sea, left in the allied line an almost fatal gap. 

The first premise was probably a false one. 
The American army was incapable of any side 
agreements among allies. I cannot but remember, 
though, that in the early days of our sojourn in 
France the British army exercised an influence 
upon our own quite incommensurate with its mili- 
tary skill. Later, however, our ablest officers per- 
ceived that the French General Staff possessed 
vast stores of military lore unknown to the other 
allies, and, lacking which, war against Germany 
must have spelled catastrophe. 

Our General Staff was earnest, capable and suc- 
cessful. It would have benefited from an earnest 
perusal of '^Pinafore," but probably to no greater 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A. E. F. 56 

extent than any other body of men possessed of 
almost unlimited authority. It soon impressed 
upon the allies the fact that our army was cast in 
a mold entirely different from that of our dip- 
lomats or our idle rich. Said an English colonel 
to me : * ^ I did not know that there were such men 
in America. My conception of Americans has 
been of men trying to make enough money for 
their wives to spend and of women trying to spend 
all the money their husbands could make. There 
are no such people in Europe as you are bringing 
over. By mere force of character you must dom- 
inate the world." 

Of course, this Englishman had seen the ex- 
tremes of our nation. The nation is much sounder 
than its specimens abroad generally appear to 
Europeans — and the best elements of our nation 
were found in our army. The staff, however, 
furnished amusement for the allies in one purely 
American way. 

The General Staff, among other things, is the 
legislature of the organization whicK" it controls. 
Our G.H.Q. (General Headquarters) was a regu- 
lar American legislature, and produced, in spite 



56 THE ARMY OF 1918 

of its many and complicated duties, an amazing 
mass of regulations governing the individual, just 
like legislatures at home. Later, when the army 
went overseas, we had a number of staff legisla- 
tures legislating their heads off. 

The American uniform was designed by the 
worst tailor in the world in conjunction with the 
worst soldier; so our dress regulations became 
subject to many changes. Tastes varied among 
the army corps, divisions and brigades; and so 
did the anatomy of the commanding officers. From 
these diverse viewpoints came codes of laws as 
diverse as the statutes of our several states. 
It is a military principle that a lower authority 
cannot repeal the restriction imposed by any 
higher authority ; but he may add to it or legislate 
upon subjects not covered by the higher command. 
Hence, an officer dressed in the height of fashion 
in one sector might find himself under arrest in 
another for wearing or failing to wear a pair of 
spurs, for the length of his overcoat, or for carry- 
ing a cane. 

To the French, who do not interfere with man- 
kind's idiosyncrasies, who devote their energy to 



EARLY DAYS OF THE A, E. F. 67 

achieving a higher degree of professional skill 
than any other army has attained, this Yankee 
legalism was a source of much amusement. Many 
officers preserve to this day the celebrated order 
that ** American soldiers are not to be seen with 
notoriously immoral women,'' issued because mili- 
tary police from rural districts, unacquainted with 
Parisian fashions and metropolitan cosmetics, re- 
vealed an embarrassing lack of discrimination in 
enforcing a rule that * ' soldiers should not associ- 
ate with immoral women." 

The French also were more amused than com- 
plimented when the American troops in Paris 
were given as a distinctive badge a white fleur-de- 
lys on the left shoulder 1 



CHAPTER IV 

THE GREAT DIVISION 

Upon the arrival of the 1st artillery brigade 
in France I was transferred to this organization 
at my request, my own regiment having been 
made into artillery. 

My previous military service had been in the 
National Guard cavalry. I was, therefore, a 
stranger both to the men and the work of the 
regular field artillery. The first impression these 
made upon me has not faded, but has grown stead- 
ily both from intimate acquaintance with them and 
from the reflections following the close of the war. 

The United States field artillery is the most 
admirable organization with which I have ever 
come in contact. During the years immediately 
preceding our entry into the war it prepared itself 
to play a threefold role: It had to keep in con- 
stant readiness to engage the numerically su- 
perior artillery of Mexico; it endeavored to con- 
stitute itself a sample of the field artillery we 

58 



THE GREAT DIVISION 59 

should require in a great war; and it had to pre- 
pare for the stupendous expansion which a great 
war would demand. 

That it would have performed the first of these 
duties successfully, if called upon, none will ever 
question. To chronicle its success in the others 
always will be the pleasant duty of every Ameri- 
can military historian. 

Although too small in its totality to execute an 
artillery maneuver, and never allowed to concen- 
trate for practice purposes, it had worked out the 
role of artillery in modern war as fully as foreign 
artilleries had done before 1914 with every facility 
at their disposal. 

I believe its use of field guns before the war was 
second only to the French. Also, it fully foresaw 
the value of curved fire, which the Germans ex- 
celled in and which the French had neglected, 
and it had asked to be supplied with powerful 
howitzers. It followed the European war more 
closely than did the other arms of our service and 
endeavored to keep its equipment abreast of war 
developments. Its form of organization was en- 
tirely adequate, and, once free from the incubus 



60 THE ARMY OF 1918 

of the ordnance department, it provided itself 
from foreign arsenals with the most effective 
weapons. 

It is unnecessary to record here how the course 
of the war surprised the officers of all armies. 
The early plans of operations of all general staffs 
failed because their conceptions of the roles of 
artillery and infantry proved to be erroneous. 

Each of the three years following 1914 brought 
innovations in war materiel, technique and tac- 
tics. Our allies loyally offered to instruct our 
inexperienced army in all the lessons they had 
learned at heavy cost. In the United States ar- 
tillery, or, to bring this statement within the prov- 
ince of my own knowledge, in the 1st brigade of 
the United States field artillery, which was the 
model and the training school for all later forma- 
tions, this instruction was accepted with the open- 
mindedness that characterizes the well-trained 
and self-reliant professional. 

The French instructors were selected from 
among their best technicians, assisted by a naval 
officer who had introduced methods adapted 



THE GREAT DIVISION 61 

from ocean navigation into the domain of field 
artillery. 

The American officers were, or course, thor- 
onghly up to date in all matters relating to 
draught and mobility and the care of horses. They 
also were so familiar with their own guns that 
learning the materiel of the French pieces was not 
more difficult than for a thoroughly skilled auto- 
mobile mechanic to familiarize himself with the 
characteristics of a new car, although among the 
higher ranking officers exceptions to this must be 
made. They rapidly mastered a number of im- 
proved methods of directing fire, as developed 
by the exigencies and the opportunities of war, 
these only involving improvements on thoroughly 
understood mathematical principles. 

Even before our training period was half 
elapsed, the need of an expanding army began to 
draw heavily on the existing organizations; but 
so efficient were these that, although the practice 
cont ^ued throughout the war, the 1st artillery 
brigade was able to meet the demands upon it for 
officers to instruct or command new units, and, at 



62 THE ARMY OF 1918 

the same time, to comply with every request for 
military service in the field. 

In October the 1st division was ordered to the 
front. The reason given was, to furnish fur- 
ther instruction ; but the real reason, it is believed, 
was to inform the allied world that American 
troops were in action. The division did not enter 
the line as a unit, but each infantry battalion was 
attached to and put under the command of a 
French regiment, each battalion of artillery being 
made a part of a French groupment. Junior 
French officers directed each of the companies, or 
batteries, and non-commissioned instructors 
abounded. Much useful knowledge was acquired 
in this way, but the most important and costly 
lesson — not to betray their presence to the enemy 
— ^was one which our troops never thoroughly 
learned. 

German observers saw strange auto trucks on 
the roads. They saw khaki-clad men around the 
artillery observation posts and in the trenches. 
To ascertain the significance of this novelty, they 
made a small trench raid on November 3rd, and 
killed and captured a handful of our infantry. 



THE GREAT DIVISION 63 

On our return to tlie rear we learned of the 
great Italian disaster of October 24th at Capo- 
retto. I felt keenly at that time that this was a 
disgrace to America. We had been in the war six 
months, with ample warning beforehand, and yet 
we were not able to put into the field at the vital 
spot the insignificant number of troops that would 
have saved the day. 

The Italians had shown their ability to fight on 
even terms with the Austrians. It was eight small 
German divisions, acting like the edge of a knife, 
that cut the hole through the Italian line. If we 
could have been able to put 100,000 American 
troops at that point the disaster would have been 
averted. 

Even after the debacle America was powerless 
to help. English and French troops, worn with the 
hard fighting of the summer, were rushed to stop 
the rout; but American troops were unavailable. 
Our system of training was not at fault; we had 
to raise a great army for 1918, and to do this we 
had to break up our entire regular army and even 
distribute the officers of our National Guard 



64 THE ARMY OF 1918 

among the raw troops. Our shameful unprepar- 
edness was responsible. 

The division then returned to the rest area 
to await its equipment and to resume its train- 
ing. All Regular officers were promoted one 
grade; some were sent back to America; still 
others became instructors in France ; a few went 
on staff duty. The lower grades were filled with 
reserve officers, graduates of the artillery schools 
in France. There was a shake-up in the higher 
command, the division commander and one bri- 
gade commander being relieved. Supplies were 
short; clothing could not be kept up; the meat 
ration had to be obtained from the Canadians; 
pay day was irregular; the mails were dilatory; 
forage was lacking, and the horses suffered. Ar- 
tillery drivers bought oats out of their own scant 
funds to feed the government horses that the gov- 
ernment did not provide for. 

At this time the General Staff College was or- 
ganized at Langres with French and English in- 
structors. Reserve and National Guard officers 
were assigned there, as well as Regulars; but 
the regulations provided that the desirable ap- 



THE GREAT DIVISION 65 

pointments from the school, the chiefs of staff and 
operations officers, could only be given to Regn- 
lar officers ; and the years of service required for 
the different appointments limited the field of 
competition for the most important posts. 

On January 6th, 1918, the division was sur- 
prised at receiving orders to proceed to the front. 
It was still short of much essential equip- 
ment, and the artillery had never been supplied 
with the telephone equipment needed to train its 
telephone details. The new battery commanders 
were away at school, leaving these important com- 
mands to officers who had been commissioned only 
a few months previously. 

The reason for ordering the 1st division to the 
front at this time has never been given. I do 
not believe that it was planned by General Per- 
shing. At least, I know his plan a few weeks 
before had been not to put the division into line 
before spring. 

It may be that considerations of French morale 
prompted it, or it is possible that the beginning 
of the Senate investigation into the conduct of the 



66 THE ARMY OF 1918 

war brought irresistible pressure from Wasb- 
ington. 

After a reconnaissance, insufficient because of 
lack of automobiles and time, tlie division marched 
from the Gondrecourt area to the St. Mihiel front. 

Here, for the first time, we held a continued 
sector — the American sector. We went in, first, 
as battalions under French colonels, then as regi- 
ments under French brigadiers ; and, finally, as a 
division under our own officers. To each Ameri- 
can unit was attached an experienced French of- 
ficer, very much as Regular officers were formerly 
attached to the militia as inspector-instructors. 
Experienced non-commissioned officers were pres- 
ent to help the men. Staff officers and technical 
experts were provided. In short, everything was 
done that could be done to obtain assistance and 
instruction from the experienced troops who had 
fought for four years. 

Strangely enough, all the American officers did 
not take kindly to this wonderful ajid necessary 
assistance. Some announced that their education 
was complete; others that the French methods 
were bad. A few complained of the individual 



THE GREAT DIVISION 67 

officers attached to them. On the other hand, 
most of the officers accepted the instruction with 
enthusiasm, or, at least, in good grace. They 
were eager to add whatever they could to their 
store of military information. They were keen 
to learn the French methods, even if they were 
not at first convinced of their excellence. 

As I look back on the early days of our partic- 
ipation in the war and consider my friends who 
failed or who succeeded, I cannot recall one ex- 
ception to this statement: That all the failures, 
who were sent to the rear or to America bitter, 
disappointed men, belonged to the class which dis- 
dained the military advice of the French, while all 
the successful officers, ranging from those who ad- 
vanced only a grade or two in promotion, or may- 
be received only a simple decoration, up to those 
who rose to the command of corps and of armies, 
belonged to the class which eagerly absorbed the 
grim lessons of war as learned by the French. 

This was inevitable. No man's education ever 
is completed. No man has fully mastered any 
profession. The men who turned from French in- 
struction, from the experience gained in four years 



68 THE ARMY OF 1918 

of war, were men whose intellects were numbed 
by complacent egotism; or who were too lazy to 
exert themselves in further study; or were men 
who, like Napoleon III. and his marshals, either 
thought that the mere possession of military rank 
in itself constituted military education or were 
afraid to enter into military discussions through 
fear of betraying an ignorance of which they were 
fully aware or at least suspected. 

There had been too much talk of '^American 
methods.'* Any methods we had were the result 
of experience in the Civil war, the Spanish war 
and the Philippine war, none of which formed any 
accurate criterion of what the great European 
war was like. None of the armies, not even the 
German, which had made the most dispassionate 
study of the lessons of Manchuria and the Bal- 
kans, had anticipated what the tactics of this war 
would be. The views entertained by our army 
were exceedingly good when compared with those 
of the other armies in the days when all were 
equally inexperienced. They were crass and inef- 
fective when compared to the tactics developed in 
four years of actual fighting. Unfortunately, 



THE GREAT DIVISION 69 

high ranking officers were not easily removed, and 
too often they had to prove their incompetency 
by costly and unsuccessful battle before they were 
removed. 

To a new division sector warfare is exceedingly 
trying, and to a division which, like ours, only 
received an important part of its necessary equip- 
ment after arriving at the front, and was not 
practiced in the use of it, the trial was particu- 
larly hard. Until a soldier becomes familiar with 
the sounds of war every little burst of artillery 
fire, every flurry of machine guns, suggests an 
attack. Any indication, or no indication at all, is 
sufficient to cause the sounding of a gas alarm. 
Officers of all ranks are uncertain of themselves 
and of their subordinates. This is a trying phase 
that every division must go through, and it is the 
more disagreeable and serious, if the division 
entering the line has not been given adequate 
training. 

Looking across the perspective of more than two 
years, I realize what a wonderful school for the 
division the Toul sector was. Under our able 
French instructors we began with the sim- 



70 THE ARxMY OF 1918 

plest operations of the separate arms, and 
worked progressively forward to trench raids of 
considerable magnitude, raids which were, in 
effect, small attacks. 

The Germans did all they could to assist our 
training. Their efforts were never beyond our 
powers not only to resist but to understand. If 
we destroyed a German battery, they destroyed 
an American battery. If our patrols captured a 
German listening post, the Germans retaliated. 
They kept even step with our growing experience, 
and firmly established our morale by an unsuc- 
cessful trench raid of large size on March 1st, a 
good six weeks after our entry into line. 

The position which the division occupied was 
ideal for a school, provided the enemy wished 
to treat it as such. Our line lay in a low, slightly 
rolling country, dominated by Mont Sec, a steep, 
high mountain held by the enemy. To keep out 
of sight of his watchful observers, troops had to 
lie close in their trenches, dugouts or camou- 
flaged battery positions. Troops in the woods, 
which abounded, were allowed freer action ; but the 
mountain looked down on the tops of the forest, 



THE GREAT DIVISION 71 

and the German observers conM recognize cut- 
tings for batteries when indiscreetly made; and 
they easily located habitations and kitchens if 
smoke was allowed to rise during the day. The 
enemy also had complete control of the air, and 
he flew at will over our lines for observation, pho- 
itographic purposes and offensive sorties. This 
control of the air also allowed him to maintain his 
balloons close to the front lines and at a maximum 
height. 

Thus, American indiscretions invariably were 
punished. Trenches, reserve positions and bat- 
teries which were revealed by the least care- 
lessness received chastisement. Sometimes this 
came in the form of harassing fire, or fire for 
destruction, or, in the event of a trench raid by 
either side, the enemy artillery would fire upon 
every American position known to it. Thick 
heads and dull, which had failed to learn the teach- 
ing at school, had the lessons of war pounded into 
them by the German schoolmasters, whose motto 
was: **He who will not heed must feel." Su- 
perior officers were enabled to judge of the intel- 
ligence and force of their subordinates by measure 



72 THE ARMY OF 1918 

of the losses they sustained. Performing exactly 
similar work and facing identical problems, some 
units were almost wiped out; others suffered the 
minimum of loss. 

The Germans also taught artillery tactics to 
our higher command. 

It may be said here that while the French in 
1918 excelled in the technique of artillery, in the 
location of the enemy, and in the accuracy of fire, 
the Germans retained a superiority of tactical 
skill. In the placing and moving of guns they 
maintained this superiority over the allies to the 
(end. 

The artillery brigade entered the Toul sector 
well instructed by the French, but also retaining 
a great many of its preconceived ideas. Conse- 
quently, it was roughly handled in the early days ; 
but with characteristic American celerity it 
discarded its notions and adopted the methods of 
the enemy where and when they had proved su- 
perior. 

During all this time there was a constant flow 
of junior officers through the organizations. 
Those who had received training at the front were 



THE GREAT DIVISION 73 

ordered to other organizations, their places being 
taken by new arrivals from America and from the 
artillery schools. This system increased the diffi- 
culty of conducting the division, but it was neces- 
sary in the greater interest of preparing the army 
for its future role. 

Service at the front also was a great test of 
personal fitness. Steps to dispose of incompetent 
officers holding permanent commissions in the 
regular army differed from the system employed 
in getting rid of inefficient reserve or national 
guard officers. Officers of the regular army could 
be relieved by their superiors, deprived of their 
temporary rank, and returned to the United 
States with their permanent rank by order of the 
commander-in-chief. They could not be dis* 
missed. All other officers could be ordered by 
their regimental commanders before a board of 
inquiry and, upon an adverse finding approved by 
higher authority, deprived of their commissions. 

It was my unpleasant duty to sit on one of these 
boards during my entire service at the front. This 
board adopted two standards, a higher standard 
of efficiency being required for provisional officers 



74 THE ARMY OF 1918 

in the regular service, whose commissions would 
become permanent with the lapse of time, than for 
the temporary officers. For the latter a degree of 
competence to perform the duties of their rank 
in warfare was selected in the beginning; but, 
later, when it was seen that the number of avail- 
able officers was less than the requirements of the 
army, the judgment of the board was tempered by 
the possibility of finding better material to re- 
place the man under a charge of incompetence. 

It was a singularly oppressive duty to bring a 
recommendation for dismissal, so disastrous to the 
feelings of young men who had offered their lives 
to their country; but, in the face of a thoroughly 
trained and experienced enemy, the retention of 
other than efficient officers would have been a be- 
trayal of our private soldiers and of our cause. 
The criticism has been made that the testimony of 
officers superior to members of the boards was 
admitted, and that this testimony exercised undue 
influence on such boards. In my experience, such 
charges are unsustained. I remember that the 
testimony of our forceful brigade commander was, 
upon occasion, held insufficient, and that by a 



THE GREAT DIVISION 75 

board on whicli his adjutant sat as a member ; on 
another occasion, a defendant arrested by order 
of the commander-in-chief, through whose initia- 
tive the proceedings were brought, was found com- 
petent to hold his commission. 

In the earlier sittings of these boards the only 
recommendation the boards were allowed to make 
was whether or not the commission of the officer 
in question should be vacated. Later this rule 
was modified, and the boards could recommend 
the transfer of an officer to some other duty. 

In the rush of the training camps it was not 
only natural that commissions should be issued to 
men incapable of holding them but that they 
should be issued in a branch of the service for 
which the officers were not qualified. In the artil- 
lery, for instance, a certain proficiency in mathe- 
matics is indispensable ; and no degree of leader- 
ship will enable a man to figure his firing data, or 
to regulate the firing of a battery from a flank. On 
the other hand, an artillery officer does not need 
the same excellent degree of physique required of 
an infantryman. A man can be a very useful junior 
officer on the staif without possessing in any de- 



76 THE ARMY OF 1918 

gree tlie qualities of leadership. Indeed, within 
the same arm of the service different qualities 
could be recognized. I recall one man who failed 
as a telephone officer but who became the chief of 
operations of a brigade and actually improved 
upon the firing methods of the French artillery. 
Another artillery officer, who had failed to shine 
elsewhere, acquired distinction while operating in 
liaison with the infantry; and he was not one of 
those who forgot his mission to lead an infantry 
platoon in assault. 

It certainly was not true in the division that 
permanent officers in the Regular army were 
held to a lower standard than those of the re- 
serve. From one regiment, two colonels, a lieu- 
tenant-colonel and a major were ordered to the 
rear. It is a fact, however, that gross incompe- 
tence received no severer treatment than depriva- 
tion of temporary rank. The Eegular army still 
contains officers whose utter incapacity was dem- 
onstrated on the battlefield, and the dangerous 
rule of seniority is raising them to positions where 
they can do more damage in our next war. 

The Regnilar officers were scrupulous about 



THE GREAT DIVISION T7 

maintaining for their subordinates from the Re- 
serve corps all honors rightfully earned. I re- 
member an instance where a first lieutenant of 
the Reserve corps had come into command of a 
battery and exercised great ability. The corps 
staff, perceiving that there was a captaincy vacant 
in the regiment, assigned to it a regular captain, 
an artilleryman by profession and a graduate of 
West Point. The colonel of the regiment, himself 
a professional artilleryman and an academy grad- 
uate, refused to supersede the reserve lieutenant 
and assigned the new captain as second in com- 
mand of another battery. 

It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, 
that the Germans should have adopted a policy 
of smashing each American division as it ap- 
peared in line. This would not have been diffi- 
cult. It is simple to destroy one division by mass- 
ing against it sufficient materiel and men. When 
the unit is raw, the operation becomes elementary. 
If the Germans, therefore, had smashed the 1st 
division, and then the 2nd and 26th and 42nd, the 
original American divisions that went to France, 
it not only would have kept these future assault 



78 THE ARMY OF 1918 

divisions from ever maturing but it would have 
broken up the entire scheme of instruction which 
made our participation so decisive in the summer 
of 1918. 

We should have had to delay putting our 
divisions into line until we had a sufficient number 
to prevent concentration against any one of them. 
This would have meant delay, and delay is one 
of the great dangers of war. I never have learned 
what reason, if any, guided the German high com- 
mand. Perhaps it was devoted to the principle 
of major maneuvers and was against all other 
considerations. Perhaps it feared to stir up the 
American people as early in the war the English 
people had been stirred. At all events the Ger- 
mans did not interfere with our raw divisions, and 
this enabled them to perform a threefold mission 
which led to the German undoing before the fol- 
lowing winter. 

This triple achievement was : The green Amer- 
ican divisions in line relieved the worn and thor- 
oughly experienced French divisions and allowed 
them to rest; they gained the experience of war- 
fare, which can come only from actual fighting, 



THE GREAT DIVISION 79 

without heavy losses, and they constantly wore 
down the trained and tired troops opposed to 
them. 

One general tribute may be paid to our senior 
officers. They were full of fight. 

Said one commander: **I don't want to hear 
any talk of German atrocities. These complaints 
have made the Germans think the allies are afraid 
of them. When we hear the Germans complain of 
us I will feel that their morale is breaking.*' 

It had been the custom for both sides, the Ger- 
mans and the allies, to take as much rest as pos- 
sible in what were known as quiet sectors. The 
Americans made these quiet sectors active. Un- 
prepared to enter any large maneuvers, the Amer- 
ican infantry, nevertheless, constantly harassed 
its opponents by patrols, trench raids and con- 
tinuous sniping, and the artillery fired day and 
night on every possible target. Undoubtedly, the 
American troops lost more heavily than their op- 
ponents, but they had a large reservoir of rein- 
forcements to draw upon, and their enemy had 
not. Our individual energy and nervous force 
was unweakened ; that of the enemy was far spent 



80 THE ARMY OF 1918 

from four years of war. Finally, we had every- 
thing to learn from these operations, wliile we 
could teach our opponents nothing. 

A great principle of warfare, announced by 
Napoleon and taught by Marshal Foch, is the 
wearing do^vn of the opponent while holding out 
a reserve for the final blow. The green American 
divisions did the wearing down; they released 
trained reserves for the final blow, and, at the 
same time, transformed themselves into assault 
troops of a high order. 

On the day the division repulsed the German 
raid on Remieres Wood, in the Toul sector, it 
received orders foretelling the expected German 
offensive. 

During the winter the Soviet government 
of Russia made peace with Germany, and Rou- 
mania was compelled to follow suit. The Ger- 
mans, therefore, were able to reinforce their 
western armies, retaining at the rear a number 
of troops for rehearsing the forthcoming battle. 
The German plan of operations was Imown. It 
was to follow the method employed in their recent 
success at Riga against the Russians, and was a, 



THE GREAT DIVISION 81 

further development of the offensive used by 
Brusiloff against the Austrians in 1916; and, be- 
fore that, by the Germans and Austrians on May 
1st, 1915, at the Dunajec. The plan of attack con- 
templated a secret assembling of artillery and 
infantry, a short and brutal artillery preparation, 
in which the use of yperite gas formed an impor- 
tant function, and then an attack, not in lines, as 
had been used before, but by detached groups 
which were to infiltrate (slip between) the de- 
fensive units and fire upon them from the flanks, 
while further groups of Germans rushed them 
from the front. 

The method of defense adopted by the allies 
was the occupation of a series of defensive lines 
by the front line divisions. Each unit of infan- 
try and artillery was to defend its position to the 
last man, without hope of reinforcement, in the 
expectation that twenty-four hours would elapse 
before the German attack could overwhelm the 
last line of defense of the sector troops, which 
would allow sufficient time for reserves held at 
strategic points along the line to form behind the 
breach. 



82 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Authorities better informed than I will have 
to tell the world what was the matter with the 
allied command in the Spring of 1918. Possibly 
there was dissension among the allied command- 
ers-in-chief; otherwise, how explain the supine 
sitting on the defensive and waiting for the blow 
to fall, tactics which every work on war has de- 
nounced as foredoomed to disaster? The excuse 
cannot be offered that the allies were waiting for 
the arrival of the American army. A large army 
was in the making in America, and the greater 
part of it had been ready for transportation to 
Europe for several months; but the transporta- 
tion, while available, had not been forthcoming, 
as events subsequently disclosed clearly proved 
and explained. 

The Germans attacked the 5th British army on 
March 21st, and quickly broke through on an 
extended front. The disaster galvanized the allies' 
into life. The gap was closed as brilliantly and 
as skillfully as it had been opened. 

The French 1st army was moved from Alsace 
to Picardy, and the 1st division, known in the 
army as the American division, was taken along. 



THE GREAT DIVISION 83 

An immediate counter-attack was projected, and 
while stopping for a few days behind the new 
front the division received instruction and prac- 
tice in the assault. For reasons unknown to me 
the plan for the attack was given up. Probably 
the troops necessary to this operation were more 
urgently needed as reinforcements in Flanders 
or in front of Amiens. 

The 1st division entered the line in Picardy 
while the German forward pressure was still in 
force. It entered a battlefield fairly covered with 
artillery on both sides, artillery which continued 
a duel for more than a month before the American 
and French artillery obtained the mastery. All 
kinds of guns, from trench mortars with a range 
of a few hundred yards to long naval guns firing 
twenty kilometers into the enemy's back areas, 
were constantly in action. All day the opposing 
artilleries fired to destroy each other, or upon 
targets which revealed themselves to the battery 
observers or to the balloons. All night they fired 
on roads, paths and stream crossings, to impede 
the advance of supplies, ammunition and rein- 
forcements; day and night they poured their 



84 THE ARMY OF 1918 

shells -upon trenches, villages and woods, to roh 
the enemy of sleep, shatter his nerves, and kill 
him. The country behind the lines was made more 
deadly from artillery fire than the front lines, 
which were spared to avoid the accidents of short 
firing into their own infantry. The infantry, how- 
ever, indulged in continuous fighting with ma- 
chine gun, rifle and grenade. All night long was 
conducted a partisan warfare. 

*^No Man's Land must be American," was the 
order of the commanding general, and our infan- 
try made it so. Enemy patrols were attacked 
wherever found, irrespective of numbers in either 
party. If the enemy remained in his trenches, 
he was sought out there. During the early days 
of the battle the Germans on our left unleashed 
an attack which made considerable progress for 
a while, and eventually some of our long-range 
guns were brought into action; but so concen- 
trated were we on our own problem that hardly 
a man today remembers the episode. 

We had learned much in the Toul sector, but 
were still lacking in that knowledge which saves 



THE GREAT DIVISION 85 

life. We lost three men to one lost by the French 
divisions on either side of us. 

A splendid aviation squadron to assist our 
heavy artillery in counter-battery was furnished 
by the French, and little by little our artillery su- 
periority, grew and the German batteries were 
destroyed or withdrawfi. One battalion of Ameri- 
can 155s was credited with the destruction of ten 
German batteries. It lost no guns from enemy 
hits, but two were blown up and several were 
worn out from continuous firing. The American 
batteries were heavily manned. It was possible 
to have two shifts of gunners, working twelve 
hours each, and still replace exhausted men with 
fresh groups from the horse lines. For the offi- 
cers, however, there was no rest, and the excessive 
fatigue revealed the greater combatant value of 
young men. Officers around forty years of age — 
and there were a number of gallant spirits of that 
age who had sought commissions as junior lieu- 
tenants — wore down under the strain, while boys 
in their early twenties, whose military value had 
appeared much less in the training period, on the 
march, and in the early days of action, became 



86 THE ARMY OF 1918 

red-eyed and pale, it is true, but evinced no dim- 
inution of vitality. 

Early in May, German resistance was so far 
weakened that the French undertook the offen- 
sive. 

The German line had stopped and was holding 
a series of naturally strong points. The policy 
of the allied high command was to take all of 
these points so as to leave the enemy no points 
of departure for new attacks, and, likewise, no 
bases of defense for our future offensive. 

Grivesnes was stormed by the French, our 
artillery participating. Soon afterwards it was. 
confided to the senior officers that a great allied 
offensive was to start at the end of May to drive 
the Germans from their positions so dangerously 
near to Paris and too close to Amiens. The gen- 
eral plan was for three divisions to attack along 
the line we held and advance eastwardly; and 
three days later twenty divisions were to move 
north from the front at Lassigny. Later, the plan 
was changed to an attack by three divisions only; 
but when the assault was finally made the 1st 
division infantry made it alone. 



THE GREAT DIVISION 87 

The attack was of the kind, carefully prepared 
and suddenly executed, which had been introduced 
by the French at Verdun in the previous summer. 
Great quantities of artillery were brought up to 
reinforce that of our division. Batteries of trench 
mortars were installed to destroy all life above 
ground in the village of Cantigny ; guns of 220 mm. 
caliber were to demolish all the cellars ; two bat- 
teries of 380 mm. guns (approximately eleven 
inches diameter) were to break into a tunnel 
known to exist in the old chateau, and a hundred 
75s were to put the rolling barrage before our 
infantry. French tanks were to lead in the as- 
sault and French flame throwers were to destroy 
any defenders who insisted on fighting to the last 
from underground shelters. 

The plan of battle was approved by the French 
army corps under which we served, and the artil- 
lery plan was formulated by officers specially de- 
tailed for this purpose. The scheme was an edu- 
cation in itself, and the method of putting it into 
execution was a novelty to the American officers. 
We had been brought up under the system where- 
by orders were issued by a superior authority and 



88 THE ARMY OF 1918 

were carried out by subordinates, without ques- 
tion or comment. Rather than speak back to a 
superior officer, our batteries had more than 
once fired at targets designated by the higher com- 
mand, but which were known to the battery and 
battalion commanders to be behind their range. 

For the assault on Cantigny the artillery field 
officers were assembled and written instructions 
were issued to each. The plan was explained and 
a general discussion invited. 

The American officers sat silent while certain 
French commanders made such comments as ap- 
peared to them reasonable. Comments and criti- 
cisms alike were received amiably. Some criti- 
cisms were waved aside ; but others, which showed 
that the staff had been mistaken in its plan, 
brought amendments, thus encouraging some of 
the American officers to make observations upon 
matters particularly within their own knowledge. 
These were taken under consideration. Where 
batteries were given missions upon targets for 
which they had no observation, telephonic com- 
munication with observation posts overlooking 
these targets was provided. The meeting broke 



THE GREAT DIVISION 89 

up with every officer thoroughly understanding 
the work before him and sharing the general con- 
fidence in the plans, so fully explained and bound 
to succeed. 

The assault took place exactly as scheduled. 
Every objective was taken. Every counter-attack 
was beaten off. The smallness of the losses proved 
at once the skill of the planners of the battle and 
the state of efficiency at which the 1st division 
had now arrived. 

The moral effect of the Cantigny battle was in- 
finitely greater than its tactical importance. Since 
early spring the Germans had been winning all 
along the line. Now, on the morrow of another 
great German victory, when the only hope of the 
allies lay in American reinforcements, American 
troops proved that they could throw back the 
enemy in formal battle. 

The success of the 1st division on May 28th was 
repeated by the 2nd division on June 6th at 
Chateau Thierry. The American quality was 
proved; only numbers were necessary to assure 
the victory. 

From Cantigny the 1st division was to go ta 



90 THE ARMY OF 1918 

greater victories at Soissons and at St. Mihiel, 
and to carry the greater part of the burden of the 
second phase of the Argonne. It was to furnish 
one army commander, two corps commanders, 
seven division commanders, a commander of army 
corps artillery, and too many brigadiers, regi- 
mental commanders and important staff officers 
to catalogue. Thirty-two thousand of its officers 
and men were killed and wounded. Of those un- 
touched by enemy shot, so many were promoted to 
command in other organizations as to leave but 
a leaven to inspire the replacements of officers and 
men. 

So great a thing is an American division when 
thoroughly trained and disciplined. 



CHAPTER V 

Germany's last offensive 

Before taking up the larger operations of 
American troops, which were now arriving in 
France in great numbers, it is necessary to review 
the course of the war throughout that year. 

The year 1917 closed with Germany once more 
successful on all fronts. In the east Eussia 
had gone bolshevik and made peace, a peace which 
Eoumania was compelled to follow. Italy, badly 
routed, had reestablished her lines only with the 
help of two hundred thousand French and English 
troops. On the western front the Germans had 
repulsed both the French and English offensives. 
The French attack was stopped, with heavy losses 
to Nivelle, within forty-eight hours. The British 
offensive proceeded through the month of August, 
but gradually lost its momentum, and it wore 
down the British army, not yet sufficiently devel- 
oped to conduct a major operation. Captured 

German documents attested to the bravery of 

91 



92 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Haig's troops, dwelt upon the inaccuracy of Ms 
artillery, and exposed the unskillfulness of the 
British commanders. 

At the end of the year several small actions 
conveyed important military lessons to those who 
might be conversant with the facts. At Verdun 
and at Malmaison the French, striking for limited 
objectives, made attacks whose brilliancy demon- 
strated that at last France had competent com- 
manders, who had discovered how to co-ordinate 
the operations of troops of the different arms 
equipped with modem weapons. They formulated 
the principle that *Hhe artillery conquers the 
ground, the infantry occupies it.*' The German 
defenders, both infantry and artillery, were anni- 
hilated by overwhelming attacks of French artil- 
lery, secretly concentrated. The French infantry 
mopped up what was left, organized the occupied 
ground, and held it against counter-attacks. 

The British assault on Cambrai in November 
was an experiment with a new weapon, and it 
succeeded beyond all expectations. A large num- 
ber of tanks and a supporting force of infantry, 
which events proved to be inadequate, were 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 93 

launched in an early morning surprise attack with 
little artillery preparation. They easily broke the 
German line and penetrated a number of kilo- 
meters, but the troops were insufficient to exploit 
this startling success. When stopped, they occu- 
pied a new line in the form of a small salient. 
The German general. Von der Marwitz, imme- 
diately concentrated his reserves and counter-at- 
tacked. Without tanks and massed artillery, his 
success, nevertheless, was complete. The English 
were driven back in confusion, and the line was 
only restored by the arrival of hastily summoned 
French troops, who made one of those long 
marches that no other allied troops, because of 
incomplete training and their inexperienced staffs, 
have been able to perform. 

A valuable lesson should have been drawn from 
this battle by any soldiers informed of its details. 
Unfortunately, the military censorship had thor- 
oughly absorbed the conviction that it must pub- 
licly announce all actions as victories. This time 
it also misinformed its allies. American head- 
quarters cabled Washington that Cambrai was a 
moral and material victory. I happened to be at 



94 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Britisli headquarters the day of the German suc- 
cess at Cambrai, and I told our staff what 
actually happened. The official British account, 
however, was accepted. 

If Cambrai had been recognized for what it was 
— a British defeat, and nearly a British disaster — 
enough pressure might have been brought to bear 
to obtain the shipping necessary to transport our 
army to the western front before the disaster of 
March, 1918. 

Only in the southeast did the year 1917 end 
more favorably to the allied cause. More success- 
ful in diplomacy than in battle, the entente brought 
Greece, whose government was pro-German, into 
the war on its side. It should be borne in mind 
that after Germany had defeated and was over- 
running Serbia, the allies invaded northern 
Greece to prevent the Germans from making a 
connection with that country and using Greek 
ports as submarine bases. Under the protection 
of the invading armies a revolution was staged by 
that wiliest of statesmen, Venizelos. King Con- 
stantine, brother-in-law of the German Kaiser, 
was compelled to abdicate, and his son, Prince 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 95 

Alexander, was placed on the throne. A republic 
probably would have been established but for the 
opposition of English royalists, who were not 
anxious to see a monarchy destroyed to make 
room for a republic. 

In December, 1917, the British defeated the 
Turkish army in Palestine. 

The incoming year, therefore, saw the French 
and English standing opposite the Germans, and 
subsidiary armies facing each other in Italy and 
Greece. Everybody knew that the Spring and 
Summer would witness a tremendous, if not a de- 
cisive, campaign on the western front. Germany 
had available the army which defeated Eussia and 
was preparing to bring it across Europe by rail. 
The allies had the American army, its prelimi- 
nary organization and training in America ac- 
complished, to bring across the Atlantic, to equip 
it with modern weapons, and give it final instruc- 
tion at the rear and in the trenches. Here was re- 
produced on a grand scale the oft repeated situa- 
tion of two hostile armies in contact and awaiting 
the arrival of reinforcements which would decide 
the fate of the battle. 



96 THE ARMY OF 1918 

German troops now marched to the guns while 
American troops were left fuming in America. 

The 1st American division was moved to France 
between June and September, 1917, and was fol- 
lowed, in order, by the 26th and 42nd. The 2nd 
division assembled in France during the winter, 
and the 41st crossed the ocean early in January. 
This rate of progress was more in keeping with 
America's pre-war unpreparedness than with the 
glorious rising of the nation which followed Field 
Marshal Joffre's embassy. 

The fault was not principally American. True, 
our newly constituted shipping board did not 
function well. Eesisting the demands of the mili- 
tary authorities, it devoted a large percentage of 
its shipping to commerce. This conduct was more 
reprehensible than injurious, however, because the 
tonnage at its disposal was small. Troops could 
not be moved in quantity except in British bot- 
toms, which, from the beginning of our overseas 
movements, our general staff in Europe had been 
negotiating unsuccessfully to obtain. The British 
held back. 

M. Painleve, the former French War Minister, 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 97 

tells us that high officers of the British army 
thought they could win the war before American 
troops arrived, and with characteristic sporting 
instinct wished to carry off the victory without 
assistance. The war, however, had made over- 
whelming demands on British shipping. Merchant 
ships had been used as breakwaters ; great num- 
bers had been sunk by submarines; many had 
been commandeered to carry munitions, war sup- 
plies and troops to England, to her allied coun- 
tries and to her columns of conquest in Asia and 
Africa. Only a small percentage of her total was 
left to maintain her foreign trade and capture 
that of Germany. 

It is the traditional policy of England, while 
engaged in European wars, to lend only such help 
on the continent as may be necessary to secure the 
victory, and to bend the rest of her efforts to ex- 
tending the British empire throughout the world. 

With the British army in France so confident 
of success, it was unreasonable to expect England 
to deprive herself of shipping to bring into France 
an army which would detract from British im- 
portance at the peace table. 



98 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Thus January and February and the first three 
weeks of March went by with only one hundred 
and fifty thousand American combatant troops in 
France, and no movement on foot to accelerate 
their transportation. Less excusable was the 
situation on the actual battlef ront. 

Every general officer in each allied army was 
sufficiently read in the history of warfare to 
comprehend the disadvantage under which two 
or more armies under separate commanders 
labor when they face enemy forces operating 
under a single commander. Even officers who 
had not studied military history hardly could 
have failed to see how the united German com- 
mand for four years had resisted and defeated 
greatly superior numbers of allies, divided as they 
were into separate armies under generals inde- 
pendent of each other. Yet so shortsighted in real 
patriotism, which ought to look only for the ulti- 
mate success of their country, and so absorbed in 
personal glorification, were the men responsible 
for the military control of the war that, rather 
than become subordinate one to another, they in- 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 99 

sisted upon maintaining a military relation 
doomed to defeat. 

Looking back on the days of March, 1918, it is 
strange to recall how confident we were of throw- 
ing hack the inevitable German attack. We knew 
that the Germans were training armies back of 
their lines for the decisive assault; we knew in 
general the tactics they proposed to employ. We 
knew that the Germans had successfully broken 
the Eussian, Serbian and Italian fronts, and we 
had learned of their new mustard gas through 
bitter experience. Yet, each army on the west- 
ern front felt that the Germans could not break 
through it! 

What happened on March 21st is known. In 
spite of air patrols, of trench raids, and of 
allied spies, the Germans succeeded in marching 
a great army through a territory inhabited by a 
French population hostile and eager to furnish in- 
formation to their countrymen, and completely 
surprised the British 5th army. 

They were well informed of the location of the 
British organized defenses and batteries. Before 
the assault these were overwhelmed by yperite 



100 THE ARMY OF 1918 

gas, the effects of which continued long- after the 
bombardment had ceased, allowing the German 
artillery to turn its full force to the protection of 
the attacking troops. 

The British defeat was complete. The way was 
open to Amiens. The Germans did what the allies 
had failed to do under more favorable circum- 
stances — they completely broke the trench system 
and annihilated the defending army. One British 
general, believing all was lost, maneuvered his 
troops as though to protect the broken right flank 
of the British army, apparently forgetting there 
was a gap in the common front that must be closed 
to avert an allied disaster. In momentary panic, 
he acted as if his only thought was to enable the 
British army to get back safely to the seacoast. 

Then, with victory in Germany's hands, the 
French army performed a maneuver as extraordi- 
nary in its way as the German attack, and closed 
around the hole in the line. Nearby troops 
marched to the battlefield with unprecedented 
speed, more remote troops moved in camions, and 
an entire army crossed France by rail from 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 101 

Lorraine. Of this army the American 1st division 
formed a part. 

It seems to me that the result of the battle of 
March 21st was the inevitable consequence of a 
situation which allowed an army, organized and 
trained through the years, to devote its entire at- 
tention to an army built up during the war. I 
have no doubt the same thing would have hap- 
pened to the American army, in the same position. 
Only the French could meet the Germans on even 
terms, and this because they had organized for 
war as long and as carefully as their traditional 
foe. 

The desperate situation galvanized the torpid 
allied governments into action. An allied com- 
mander-in-chief was named. After March 21st 
there could be no doubt in what army the supreme 
command should lie. It was given to General 
Foch and his French staff. 

Foch received the appointment because of the 
high opinion Clemenceau entertained for him. In 
many circles Joffre would have been the most 
welcome leader. Joffre, however, had a certain 
military opposition and he was much feared by 



102 THE ARMY OF 1918 

the French politicians because of his popularity. 

I do not feel that the personality of Foch made 
much difference. What was needed was any one 
of a half dozen French generals educated in the 
French schools of high command, who had prac- 
ticed during the years of peace the maneuvering 
of large bodies of men by rail and by road, and 
who had risen in the French army with a freedom 
of promotion for merit which did not exist in the 
English armies. If France did not produce any 
great general in this war, she did furnish a num- 
ber of masters of technique and she certainly 
promoted officers who demonstrated unusual 
ability. 

With the German drive stopped by the French 
just short of Amiens, and again in April at Kem- 
mel Hill, the allied position was almost hopeless. 
A few more concentrations, a few more drives, 
and Germany must be victorious. The only hope 
of salvation was to get American help before Ger- 
many could strike again. 

Commercial considerations being forgotten, 
shipping was produced as if by magic. A new 
and serious question, however, had presented 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 103 

itself. Should the half-trained and imperfectly 
armed American troops be transported across the 
ocean in the face of a not improbable German vic- 
tory, of which they could only be the spoils? If 
Germany should win before Summer, the Ameri- 
can troops would not be in condition to assist in 
the allied defense; they would fall into the Ger- 
man hands as hostages, and they would not be 
available to defend the American seacoast from 
the attack of the victor. 

I have an idea that many readers will scorn a 
suggestion implying so despicable a motive. Let 
them study the conduct of the allies during the 
war; the ratio between English troops in France 
and in England and the failure to support Russia 
in 1915. 

America sent her troops. She did much more. 
She sent them as the allies needed them, and not 
as the ambitions of their generals dictated or as 
their own welfare required. Divisions were 
broken up and the infantry sent without its ar- 
tillery. They were sent, not to enter quiet sectors 
for instruction in modem warfare, but to reinforce 
tired, hard-pressed troops on an active front. A 



104 THE ARMY OF 1918 

large part of them were put under generals and 
colonels of an army which had just been com- 
pletely defeated. 

The troops which went into action with the 
British were not raw troops. They were, for the 
most part, national guardsmen, many of whose 
officers had given their leisure time to military 
study. They had received preliminary training 
in the Mexican mobilization and had now been 
drilling for nearly a year. They had been prac- 
ticed in marching formations, had received small 
arms and bayonet training, and had been taught 
infantry tactics so far as these had developed up 
to the Summer of 1917. They had not studied the 
use of the modern infantry weapons of assault, 
the trench mortars or infantry cannon. They had 
not learned the use of cover, which only comes 
from service at the front, and which can be taught 
with smaller losses in sector warfare. They were 
totally uninformed as to the methods of attack 
developed and perfected by the French at the end 
of 1917 and they were not accompanied by their 
own artillery, which should have been trained 
with them until they had reached the perfect un- 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 105 

der standing essential to tlie support of infantry 
if it is to be saved heavy losses in assault. 

So much higher, therefore, is their glory, that 
without flinching they faced the strain of battle 
which the French higher command only required 
of the 1st division after three months of sector 
training, of the 2nd after five months, and of the 
26th and 42nd after six. 

After March 21st American divisions debarked 
in France in the f ollomng sequence : 32nd, 3rd, 5th 
complete, and the 28th, 77th, 4th, 27th, 30th, 35th 
and 33d without artillery. 

On May 27th the Germans broke the Franco- 
British Chemin des Dames line and marched into 
the Chateau Thierry salient, to be stopped on June 
4th by another army, hastily collected by General 
Foch, of which the American 2nd division occupied 
the key position on the direct road to Paris, while 
the machine gun battalion of the 3rd division went 
into action on the south bank of the Marne. 

American troops were now called upon in num- 
bers. The 3rd, 4th and 28th divisions were moved 
from British fronts to the Chateau-Thierry 
salient. The 26th was brought from Toul and put 



106 THE ARMY OF 1918 

into the front line, and the 42nd was taken from 
reserve at Baccarat and put into line near Reims. 
The 77th, 82nd, 35th and 32nd divisions were 
training, relieving divisions already trained, and 
wearing down the Germans in the qniet sectors. 

The German advances had stopped, forming a 
series of salients projecting into our lines. 

From the days of short fronts and short range 
weapons, salients have been well recognized weak 
points for the reason that the adversary could 
concentrate a heavy fire upon them from several 
directions and confuse the defenders by simul- 
taneous attacks on the different fronts. In the 
early part of this war, although ranges had in- 
creased enormously, the lengths of fronts had in- 
creased in even greater proportion, and many 
salients were created and held with impunity be- 
cause they were so much greater in extent than 
the range of the artillery used in the early period 
of the war that it was impossible to concentrate 
fire upon them. It seemed as though the old prin- 
ciple of tactics no longer held. 

However, by the Spring of 1918 the French had 
armed themselves with a great number of mobile 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 107 

guns ranging nearly 20,000 meters. With these 
they surrounded the Cantigny and Chateau- 
Thierry salients. The divisional artillery fired to 
its extreme range. From there on the 155 longs 
took up the mission. A small semicircle which the 
longs could not reach was attacked with special 
cannon of still greater range and with aerial bom- 
bardments. Nowhere in the salients was there 
safety or rest for the Germans. Advancing to the 
front line or returning to rest, they were compelled 
to pass mile after mile over roads subject to artil- 
lery fire. 

The effect of this artillery fire must not be for- 
gotten in casting up the reasons for the German 
collapse. 

On June 7th the Germans attempted another 
grand attack on the line Montdidier-Noyon, 
and here they met their first complete check. The 
French had notice of the plan and adopted a spe- 
cial form of tactics to defeat it. Strong points 
were skillfully concealed and held in force. Ger- 
man troops passing between them, according to 
their new tactics of infiltration, were caught under 
the concentrated artillery fire of the defense. 



108 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Wlien the weight of the Geiinan attack forced 
back the garrisons at the strong points, these re- 
tired in good order upon a line of supporting 
troops, drawn up beyond the range of the German 
barrage, and fully prepared for battle. The at- 
tack was stopped, and the 10th army, under Gen- 
eral Mangin, advancing from billets in the region 
of Beauvais, counter-attacked on the German 
right flank and drove it back in disorder. 

This was the first big allied success and it was 
made possible by the valor of the French troops, 
the tactical skill of their leaders, and the presence 
of ^ve hundred thousand American troops, which 
released an equal number of French veterans 
from the quiet sectors to thicken their defensive 
organization. 

With the entrance into line of the American 
army in force the hour for German victory had 
passed. 

Disturbed by rumors from the Fatherland, and 
hurried by the rapid development of the Ameri- 
cans, the German staff began to falter. The 
preparations for the attack around Reims were 
not well concealed. Field Marshal Foch was 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 109 

fully informed of them and massed his defensive 
troops. Not only Americans, but English and 
even Italians, were brought to the battlefield. 
Even the exact hour of the assault was learned, 
and the French defensive bombardment was 
started one hour before the German fire. Sur- 
prised with munitions for the artillery prepara- 
tion piled beside the guns, with columns of troops 
advancing into position along heavily shelled 
roads, it was too late to stop the attack. 

General Gouraud withdrew his troops from the 
front into three defensive lines. He ordered that 
the first line, when hard pressed, should fall back 
on the second, and the third line troops should 
act for counter-attack, or for defense of the last 
position, as developments of the battle might 
dictate. 

In the first line only groups of machine gunners 
and signalers were left. They were to notify the 
command of the start of the German assault and 
keep the defensive artillery informed of its prog- 
ress, so that the heavy barrage could be kept con- 
stantly on the advancing Germans. 

From Chateau-Thierry to Verdun this attack 



110 THE ARMY OF 1918 

stopped either at the advance or at the inter- 
mediate line, excepting just west of Eeims, where 
the German column thrust back its opposition and 
continued to progress towards Epernay. Nowhere 
did Americans give way. The 42nd and 3rd di- 
visions particularly distinguished themselves. 

Not many troops on either side were available 
for maneuver, but on the allied side there re- 
mained at the disposition of Marshal Foch the 
best troops in the war, the 1st and 2nd American 
divisions and the French Moroccans. These three 
divisions were formed into a special corps under 
General Berdoulat, and, assisted by a mass of 
little, fast French tanks, debouched from the for- 
est of Villers-Cotterets at daylight on July 18th. 
By nightfall they had driven seven kilometers into 
the enemy's line. Without reinforcement or re- 
lief, they attacked again the next day, and on the 
20th captured Berzy-le-Sec, cutting the road from 
Soissons to Chateau-Thierry. 

The German advance on Epernay, made in the 
hope of capturing Reims and flattening out the 
salient, had to be abandoned, and their resources 
devoted to stopping the great counter-attack 



GERMANY'S LAST OFFENSIVE 111 

wHcli threatened to capture their whole army. 
Scotch and French troops relieved the Americans 
and the Moroccans, but German reinforcements 
in equal numbers had been rushed to the scene 
and the allied advance was stopped. 



CHAPTEE VI 

A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 

Shoetly after the battle of Cantigny I was pro- 
moted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel in my 
old regiment, now the 122nd field artillery, and 
upon its arrival in France was assigned to it at 
the request of the regimental commander. Nei- 
ther in the regular army nor in any foreign serv- 
ice have I seen a body of men reach a greater 
state of efficiency before they had undergone the 
experience of battle. The regiment was in a splen- 
did state of administration, of discipline and of 
morale. The officers, who had come from the cav- 
alry more than a year before, had studied their 
new technique to good eifect. 

Upon the order of the commanding officer I 
prepared a course of instruction, drawn from 
eight months' experience at the front, which was 
to supplement the instruction in fire adjustment 
given by the school. 

I insert these instructions, written in the midst 

112 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 113 

of war, primarily for the purpose of illustration. 
In later chapters I will refer to untrained divisions 
and green divisions. Our inexperienced troops 
were ignorant of many military accomplishments 
not touched upon in this simple course. The points 
I sought to cover were essentials in which most 
of the officers who had come to the 1st division 
from America and from training schools in France 
had either not been taught or had totally failed to 
comprehend. 

The immense blockades on the roads during the 
Argonne fighting were primarily due to ignorance 
of road discipline. The hunger of which so many 
con^plained was due to their ignorance of the con- 
servation and use of food. 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR TROOPS ABOUT TO ENTER 
THE LINE 

Upon leaving the training camp and entering upon 
active duty, it is necessary for junior officers to appre- 
ciate the immensely greater responsibilities which they 
incur. In a regimental camp, the commanding officer 
or, in all events, the field officers between them, can 
personally supervise everything and can personally 
direct and correct whenever necessary. On the other 
hand, when deployed in action, when spread out on the 



114 THE ARMY OF 1918 

march and even when billeted in towns, this immediate 
supervision becomes impossible. Enforc&ment of orders 
and discipline devolves upon the junior officers unmded. 

The senior officers can only issue orders and inspect 
to see if they are properly carried out and if not, to 
proceed against the officer mho has failed to carry themn 
out. 

CHAPTER I. The Maxch.— The rules for con- 
ducting a march are the following: 

(1) All vehicles must be securely and neatly packed. 

(2) When moving, all vehicles must be kept at all 
times at the extreme right of the paved road, in 
order to allow traffic freely to pass the column. 
When halted, the vehicles will be pulled clear off 
the road, whenever possible. 

(3) They must be formed in groups. Generally, ten 
vehicles form a group and the distance between 
groups is fifty meters, to form a pocket in which 
faster vehicles may enter when meeting traffic, 
or while passing the train. A red disc is placed 

^ on the rear end of the rear wagon of each group. 

(4) Trains will never, under any circumstances, be 
stopped in towns. 

The foregoing rules are elementary, but because of 
their simplicity are frequently neglected. Their ob- 
servance is absolutely obligatory and must be enforced, 
if necessary, by severe disciplinary measures against 
negligent officers. The next two rule? are not easily ob- 
served. They are: 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 116 

(5) Never allow the road to become blocked. 

(6) Never lose the way. 

Most frequent causes for blocking of traffic are becom- 
ing mired and driving off the paved road. These faults 
can be minimized with well trained drivers, but there is, 
on narrow or bad roads, a constant opportunity for the 
initiative of the commanding officer. For instance, 
when coming to a steep hill, or to a soft length of road 
that threatens to stall the train, attach additional horses 
to each vehicle before it enters the bad spot. It is 
easier to pull a moving vehicle through a muddy hole or 
up a steep slope than to start one once stalled. In the 
case of a sharp turn in a narrow road, it is desirable to 
unhitch the lead horses ; sometimes all except the wheel- 
ers may be removed. Time taken in these little opera- 
tions is inconsequential compared with the long delays 
due to stalling of a gun or park wagon. 

On the march to Cantigny two wagons getting off a 
bad piece of road delayed a regiment of artillery eight 
hours. 

Whenever a train becomes blocked for any reason, it is 
the duty of a superior commander to investigate the con- 
duct of the officer immediately in charge, to ascertain 
not only whether he was guilty of negligence but whether 
he exercised all the initiative and energy which might 
be expected and required of him. 

The final injunction (6) is the most important, the 
most frequently violated, and the one whose violation 
is the most fatal in its consequences. 



116 THE ARMY OF 1918 

The rale is absolute. 

An officer travelling must never lose his way. 

An officer who violates this injunction must be con- 
sidered prima facie guilty of a very serious offense, re- 
quiring the strongest kind of evidence to overcome his 
presumption of guilt. 

It is not necessary to be lost. Sometimes a road is 
easy to follow and, therefore, invites carelessness. Other 
times a way may appear so difficult as to invite dis- 
couragement. The consequences of a mistake may be 
so serious, in a military way, that mistakes must be 
made serious for the offender. It will be remembered 
that many battles have been lost because an organization, 
or even a messenger, violated this simple rule. 

Precautions to be taken include a careful study of 
the map, a careful reading of all signboards along the 
road, and, when doubt exists, an interrogation of inhabi- 
tants and scouting along different forks of a doubtful 
crossroad. 

A train once committed to a wrong road may be com- 
pelled to a long detour ; may run to a blind end ; may 
have to be left out of an operation entirely. It is, there- 
fore, indispensable that a train shall have competent 
scouts pushed sufficiently far in advance to establish 
the correct direction before the column reaches the 
crossroad. 

Each battery will have a machine gun mounted on a 
wagon for use against airplane attack. The machine 
gun detail will be charged with keeping a sharp look- 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 117 

out for hostile airplanes. Whenever a hostile airplane 
is reported within the vicinity of the column, the column 
will be withdrawn under trees, if possible, otherwise 
halted on the road until the airplane has passed. All 
mounted men will dismount when at a halt. On the 
march, drivers will be required to walk about half 
the time. 

Officers should be taught to locate the North Star 
by the Big and Little Dippers and by Cassiopeia. They 
should accustom themselves to follow the course of 
the sun by day and of the stars at night. They should 
also memorize the general course of the rivers of the 
neighborhood. Watches, compasses, and maps are es- 
sential to scientific warfare, but one should be prepared 
to get along without them if necessary. 

CHAPTER IT. Occupying Positions.— Occupying 
battery positions divides under four heads. The first 
is in the case of the relief of a sector. In this case 
a battery generally takes up the position of the battery 
it relieves. Ample time is furnished for reconnaissance 
of roads. The relief is made at night in order to avoid 
observation by the enemy, and if traffic on the road 
permits it is desirable to separate the guns by an in- 
terval of five minutes' march to allow each gun to un- 
limber and the horses to move away before the next gun 
arrives in position. This plan will minimize confusion 
in case fire comes on the battery during the relief, or 
in case of fire along the road of approach. It is the 
duty of the outgoing battery to turn over to the incom- 



118 THE ARMY OF 1918 

ing battery all information, of whatever nature, per- 
taining to its battery position. An officer of the out- 
going battery remains with the incoming battery for a 
day or two; the incoming battery commander should 
avail himself to the fullest extent of the information 
of the outgoiQg officer. Pride or a false fear of appear- 
ing ignorant cannot be tolerated. 

The second case of occupying a battery position is as 
a reinforcing battery. In this instance, a number of the 
available battery positions will have been noted by the 
staff, and there will be offered to each groupment, or 
group, either a certain number of alternative battery 
positions from which to select, or the locations for bat- 
teries will be indicated by coordinates. Sometimes no 
opportunity for reconnaissance can be given the battery 
officers. Hence, absolute familiarity with the map is 
essential. 

It must be borne in mind that with the immense quan- 
tity of artillery used in this war, individual batteries 
must be located according to a general plan, the needs 
of the individual battery giving way to the greater 
needs of the whole. At the same time, group and bat- 
tery officers have much better opportunity for deter- 
mining the very best location for a battery within a 
limited area and much greater interest in so doing than 
has the staff. Therefore, when a battery commander 
finds a position which he thinks will allow him to per- 
form all his missions, will not interfere with any other 
battery, and will afford him greater protection than the 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 119 

one allotted him, he should report this fact to his imme- 
diate superior. Every battery and group commander 
studies the ground in his area with great care so as to 
endeavor to get absolutely the best location and ar- 
rangement of his guns. The Plan Director is a map 
of extraordinary exactness, but it must be remembered 
that the contours are separated by five meters and cannot 
portray the small accidents of the ground which fur- 
nish the best defilade both from view and from fire. 

The third case is that of an advance. The conditions 
are much the same as in reinforcing; the batteries are 
moved according to a plan of operations. The difference 
is that the accidents of battle may disarrange the plan 
and call upon the immediate commander to display 
initiative and originality. 

The fourth case is of batteries going to fill a gap in 
the line, as at Montdidier and Chateau-Thierry. This 
condition more nearly approximates the methods set 
down in our drill regulations than any of the others. 
It may be pointed out that in this situation the enemy's 
infantry has preceded his artillery and that, as less 
counter-battery is to be feared, less attention need be 
paid to defilade and more to the selection of positions 
which facilitate the quick opening of fire. 

CHAPTER III. Emplacements.— Work on battery 
emplacements should be begun, when possible, be- 
fore the arrival of the battery, and to this end the bat- 
tery and group commanders should endeavor to send 
forward working parties to get some sort of protection 



120 THE ARMY OF 1918 

before the battery arrives. Work on the emplacement 
must continue as long as the battery occupies the posi- 
tion. Men should be encouraged to take pride in their 
skill in constructing battery positions and not to feel 
disappointed when their well-built position must be 
evacuated. 

It is a simple matter to make a protection against 
shrapnel and shell fragments, even of large caliber 
shells. When a gun crew is so protected that it cannot 
be put out of action except by a direct hit by shell, 
there is little chance of it failing to perform its duty 
in battle, even if under fire. With time, tunnels to 
shelter gun crews can be driven to a sufficient depth to 
render them proof against counter-battery fire. 

The method and order of construction of battery posi- 
tions are laid down in general orders. It is well to call 
the attention of battery commanders to the fact that the 
battery commander's command posts should be at least 
100 meters to one flank of the guns. 

CHAPTER IV. Defilade.— This is the most dif- 
ficult part of the artillery and, next to correct shooting, 
the most important. It includes the selection of a posi- 
tion, the artificial improvement of this position, and 
the abstention from doing things which will reveal the 
position to an enemy on the ground or in the air. 

An ideal position for 75s would be along a road of 
irregular tracing not carried on the map; in some 
broken ground in which the wheels, trail and gun crew 
can be located in a depression where the natural sur- 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 121 

face of the ground reaches up to the muzzle and forward 
rises a mask which does not interfere with the minimum 
range required for the tactical use of the guns ; for the 
howitzers a position along a similar road but behind a 
hill, the higher the better, with a slope of 30 degrees, 
or behind a steep bank, or in a cut or ravine. 

The 75s, because of their small size and flash, can be 
very effectively concealed among bushes, hedges or 
orchards. The howitzers are not as easily concealed, and 
because of their high angle of fire may be placed in 
woods or behind hills where the field pieces could not 
operate. In any battery area a number of sites will 
be found, each possessing various advantages and 
disadvantages. It is a part of the function of an 
artilleryman to balance the advantages and select the 
most suitable. 

Battery officers should take every opportunity to 
study the conformation of ground and to pick out likely 
battery positions. It is only by perfect familiarity with 
ground conformation that officers in battle can rapidly 
select the best available position. They should beware 
of small woods carried on the plan director. If their 
presence in such a wood becomes known, their cover 
becomes a target, a point which can be used by the 
enemy to measure ranges and deflections and an object 
of good visibility for airplane observation. 

The batteiy position selected, the problem of artificial 
concealment [camouflage] presents itself. This is the 
subject of vital importance. One of the greatest mis- 



122 THE ARMY OF 1918 

takes an artillery officer unfamiliar with the subject can 
make is to minimize it through egotism. A study of 
enemy counter-battery fire upon any groupment will 
reveal the fact that one or two batteries receive most 
of the punishment. This is due to bad camouflage and 
bad defilade discipline in the batteries concerned. 

Any battery commander can learn the principles of 
camouflage, and by availing himself of talent in his 
organization can obtain a great degree of invisibility. 
The principle of camouflage is to have the ground upon 
which the battery rests reveal to aerial observation or 
photography little or no change. 

First, the four pieces should not be placed at regular 
intervals or in line; second, no shadows should be 
thrown; camouflage nets should be sloped so that early 
morning sun and the late evening sun will not cast 
shadows. Existing shadows should not be suppressed; 
for instance, if a battery is located in a quarry the 
camouflage should not cover the side of the quarry. Re- 
flection of light is to be avoided ; camouflage should not 
be stretched tight and flat. Black holes should not ap- 
pear, for which reason curtains must extend over em- 
brasures and back of the emplacements and over ammuni- 
tion shelters. It is found desirable to have the bottom 
of the camouflage net about two feet from the ground. 
Where foliage must be cut to permit the firing of bat- 
teries, this must be done with careful study ; the cutting 
must be (1) reduced to the absolute minimum; (2) not 
nearer to the ground than the requirements of minimum 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 123 

range demand, and (3) not regular in shape. Batteries 
in woods and hedges will be greatly helped in their con- 
cealment by use of freshly cut branches set on end, 
either in the ground or in wire netting above the pieces. 

The camouflage erected, the battery conunander can- 
not dismiss the subject. Camouflage has the habit of 
falling into disarray, like the clothing of a schoolboy, 
and in order to look natural needs to be readjusted to 
meet the different conditions of light, like the com- 
plexion of a mature beauty. If one of the officers shows 
an aptitude for the subject, he may be designated, in 
addition to his other duties, as camouflage officer ; other- 
wise this duty must be confided to a suitable non- 
commissioned officer. The camouflage officer, or non- 
commissioned officer, must be constantly wandering 
around the position looking for faults and for oppor- 
tunities of improving the camouflage. No greater 
evidence of military proficiency can be given by a 
battery officer than by keeping his battery in condition 
of good defilade. 

The battery commander must determine the avenues 
of circulation. If the battery is on a road, the kitchen 
must be put down the road in one direction and the 
latrine in the other direction. Under no circumstances 
must men leave the road except to perform duty. If 
one or more paths are absolutely unavoidable, they 
should be wound irregularly around trees and bushes 
or along the border separating two different crops in a 
field. Cutting of comers must be forbidden under severe 



124. THE ARMY OF 1918 

penalty. It is desirable to fence the permitted paths 
with barbed wire, and, until this is done, to station path 
sentries with orders and to compel every one, even senior 
officers, to obey them. 

The necessity of keeping out of sight must be thor- 
oughly explained to the men, and discipline must be 
used whenever necessary to enforce this rule. Men in 
the open must take cover immediately upon a hostile 
airplane being reported. It is to be borne in mind that 
it is much easier to keep men out of the open than to 
get them in from the open in time to prevent their 
being seen. While batteries are generally defiladed from 
enemy view, lengths of roads leading to them are always 
in enemy view. Circulation along these roads may re- 
veal to the experienced enemy the locations of batteries 
themselves invisible. The battalion commander, there- 
fore, must control such circulation. 

Smoke is a frequent means of betraying locations. 
In clear, windless weather, smoke columns can be inter- 
sected from enemy 0. P 's. and their location determined 
to a yard. An example of the penalty of poor smoke 
discipline was that of a battery kitchen in a large forest 
of tall trees which received a volley of forty shells per- 
fectly aimed. 

Even the best defiladed battery will be located by 
intersection of its flashes or by sound ranging, if it fires 
alone. A sufficient volume of fire will confuse both the 
flash spotting and sound ranging sections of the enemy. 
Thus, in general action, batteries are not apt to reveal 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 1^5 

their presence, and the chances of bein^ located by flash 
spotting and sound ranging may be minimized in regis- 
tration by having several different batteries fire at the 
same, or approximately the same, moment; during fire 
for destruction, by having several destructions carried 
on at the same time. In registration, this is best accom- 
panied by cooperation between battalion commanders; 
and in fires for destruction, must be regulated by the 
chief of the divisional artillery. 

The enemy may be further confused by the use of 
roving guns. Individual guns, platoons or even batteries, 
in the case of the light artillery, are taken out of their 
regular position, moved under the cover of darkness and 
fired for a day, or a part of a day, from a temporary 
position, moving out again that night. 

As a protection against enemy fire for destruction, 
the practice of separating the platoons by a hundred 
yards or more is coming more and more into use. In 
batteries of 155s, the separation of a battery into two 
platoons for firing is done more than half the time 
when standing on the defensive. Intervals between guns 
are also greatly increased, sometimes to as much as 
100 meters. 

The movement toward the dispersion even of the 
component units of batteries has been accentuated by 
the use of yperite (mustard gas). While the gas mask 
and oiled clothing give temporary protection against 
this gas, it is impossible for men to remain on the ground 
upon which any considerable number of yperite shells 



U6 THE ARMY OF 1918 

have fallen. The dividing of batteries renders the dis- 
abling of an entire battery less probable, or, in any 
event, demands a double expenditure of enemy shells. 

The battery command post also should be located far 
enough from the battery to be out of the yperite fumes. 
Alternate battery positions must be located and oriented, 
to which the pieces must be withdrawn as soon as the 
gas bombardment upon the position has ended. The 
pieces must be thoroughly disinfected, the clothing of 
men exposed to the yperite fumes changed, the men 
bathed in soap and water, and the clothing hung to let 
the yperite evaporate into a location where the fumes 
can do no damage. 

Finally, in order to confuse the enemy, Quaker bat- 
teries will be made. These should not be too visible or 
they will not fool the enemy. If false flashes are ob- 
tainable from the storage park, they can be fired from 
these dummy positions. If they are not available, the 
unused packages of powder from the 155s can be fired 
by means of Bickford fuses. 

CHAPTER V. Artillery Observation. — Upon com- 
ing into position, observation should be organized in 
the first instance by battalion. The batteries of 75s 
find observation posts where they can observe their bar- 
rage. The battalion observation post is located where 
it can get the best view of the battalion sector. The 
battery observation posts will report directly to the 
batteries observation of fire and barrage. All other 
information is reported to battalion headquarters. Ob- 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 127 

servation posts of the 155s, not being concerned with 
the baiTage, seek longer views. They will become 
valuable to regulate barrage if the enemy crosses our 
first line, and should be used to study the ground where 
such barrage would be put down. Their occupants 
should be ready to control the fire of the 75s on such 
barrage, if called upon to do so. 

Where an 0. P. has a special mission, as in the case 
of a battery observation post of 75s, one man will watch 
this field, while another performs general observation. 

The number of the personnel occupying observation 
posts will vary according to the cover obtainable. It is 
desirable to have it not less than three nor more than 
six. Where an 0. P. is in a position exposed to enemy 
view, details are changed every night and remain in 
the observation post for 24 hours. 

Strict discipline must be used, if necessary, to prevent 
men from disclosing their persons or in any way be- 
traying the 0. P. to the enemy. A disclosure not only 
endangers the personnel but may lead to the destruction 
of the 0. P. at the moment observation is most needed. 

It is highly desirable to have the observation posts 
interconnected by telephone, as will be pointed out 
in the chapter on Telephone. In the absence of such 
line, the battalion observation posts can readily com- 
municate with each other through the battalion switch- 
board and the lines connecting battalion command posts. 

Upon occupying an observation post, the officer in 
charge will immediately select an object in enemy ter- 



128 THE ARMY OF 1918 

ritory about the middle of his field of vision, and which 
is accurately represented upon the map. This will be 
the zero line of his observatoiy. The instruments will 
be oriented with the zero of the lower limb laid on this 
point. The lower limb will be securely clamped. Ob- 
servations from the observatory will thereafter be read 
on the mill scale: so many mills right or left (of Mont 
Sec steeple or Canti^y graveyard). It will be the 
duty of the personnel in charge of the observatory to see 
that the lower limb of the instrument is never moved, 
and to caution senior officers, who alone have the right 
to enter observation posts, as a further protection against 
a loss of the zero line. Stakes will be driven along this 
line which can be seen in thick weather and identified 
at night by means of luminous watch faces. If the ob- 
servatory is occupied in thick weather, observation 
must be made according to the points of the compass 
until the weather clears. 

As rapidly as possible the officer of the observation 
post will prepare a panoramic sketch and a visibility 
map of the field of view from his observatory. Each 
O. P. will be given the coordinates of the other 0. P's. 
in the battalion. Each observer will visit all the 0. P 's. 
as opportunity offers, and will communicate directly 
with them when he sees something of interest which he 
thinks may be invisible from their observatories. 

All matters of sufficient interest are to be reported 
immediately to battalion command posts, from which 
they will be relayed to the higher commands. 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 1^9 

A diary will be kept in each 0. P., divided into 24 
parts, corresponding to the hours of the day, and aU 
events of whatever kind not worthy of immediate re- 
port will be written down in this diary. This will 
include the fall of enemy shells and an impression as 
to their origin. If enemy shells pass directly over the 
observation post, this should be reported by telephone. 
The point of fall then being determined, a line is estab- 
lished within which the enemy battery lies. All 
occurrences deemed of interest to the battery will be 
reported immediately. Among these will be firing of 
any kind, with the observer's best impression as to the 
direction from which it comes; all activity, flashes, all 
smoke, all unusual noises within the enemy lines, any 
suspicious movements within our own lines, and partic- 
ularly any signals from our infantry. 

These will all be reported by reference to the zero 
line and to objects on the ground. 

In case of enemy attack, the observers will report its 
progress and call for fire on vulnerable targets. If the 
attack advances far enough, the observers will have an 
opportunity for individual distinction. A few deter- 
mined men in a concealed dugout may delay many times 
their number for an appreciable time. 

Observers of different batteries, battalions and regi- 
ments will at need register the fire of any battery in 
the brigade. Where none of the observation posts is 
suitable to fire on any particular objective, use of the 
ground telegraphic sets of the infantry may be made. 



130 THE ARMY OF 1918 

The observer, accompanied by the operator, finds a 
location where he can view the objective. If the dis- 
tance permits, the messages are sent direct to the 
antennas of its battalion; if not, they are sent to the 
infantry command post, which relays them by telephone. 

As rapidly as possible the regimental observation 
officer coordinates the observation posts of the regiment, 
and the brigade observation officer coordinates all those 
within the brigade. Upon occasion, O. P's. of different 
battalions, or even of different regiments, may be con- 
nected to regimental and brigade centrals, though this 
practice must be limited owing to the amount of traffic 
over brigade and regimental lines. 

Because no two divisional sectors are alike, it is im- 
possible to fix hard and fast rules for the conduct of 
observation. The efficiency of the observation system 
will depend on the skill and energy of the officers con- 
cerned. 

It is to be borne in mind that while all the^observation 
posts of the brigade are to be considered one system, the 
initiative of battalion commanders and observation of- 
ficers must not be dulled. 

The brigade has the use not only of the divisional 
artillery observation posts but is in communication with 
the infantry observation officer and corps observation 
officers. Frequently an uncertain report as to the loca- 
tion of an enemy position, or activity in the enemy line, 
from one observation system can be corroborated from 
one of the other sources. 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 131 

Regimental and brigade headquarters will install addi- 
tional observation stations, or move existing stations 
of battalions and even of batteries, when this will re- 
sult in reducing the extent of the invisible areas. 

CHAPTER VI. Artillery Telephones. — The scheme 
of artillery telephone consists of branching lines 
from brigade to regiments, regiments to battalions, 
battalions to batteries, and batteries to battery observa- 
tion posts. Regimental headquarters are connected 
together, as are adjoining battalions and battery com- 
mand posts; in addition, the units of 75s are connected 
with corresponding units of infantry. 

With every telephone operator there will always be 
an orderly to be sent for any person desired on the 
telephone ; in time of unusual activity, there will be two 
orderlies. 

Telephone liaison will always be reinforced by visual 
signalling and by mounted or foot messengers. It is 
essential that all men of the liaison detail shall be 
familiar with all roads and paths between battery posi- 
tions and battalion, battalion and regiment, and regi- 
ment and brigade. 

The many diversions of attention, the many calls for 
men, the constant assignment of men to different duties, 
creates an erosion which wears away these organizations 
established at the beginning of a campaign. It is the 
constant, and perhaps the most important, duty of a 
battalion commander to see that these are continually 
renewed and that the organization will never find 



132 THE ARMY OF 1918 

itself surprised by the cutting of the telephone liaison. 

Operation of telephones at the front requires a degree 
of rapidity, skill and accuracy far in excess of that re- 
quired commercially. A few seconds lost by a delay, 
or a mistake, may cost many lives. 

When two or more calls come at the same time, the 
first preference should be given to an observation post, 
second preference to the line of the senior command, 
third preference to a junior command, and fourth to 
a collateral line. This may be varied, according to the 
intelligence of the operator, when especially important 
news is expected from some source. All telephones will 
be tested every half hour in each direction. Operators 
will never call an officer to the telephone to speak to 
an officer of inferior rank. Officers below the rank of 
battery commander or adjutant will not ask an oper- 
ator to get a party on the line, but will be given con- 
nection with the switchboard and personally ask for 
the desired party. 

Lines are used only for official communication. Ter- 
rible things have happened because a telephone wire was 
being used for sociable conversation. The locations of 
friendly positions are never mentioned over the tele- 
phone, nor is any other information that might be use- 
ful to the enemy. 

As the relative location of observation posts, battery 
and command posts vary indefinitely, so an indefinite 
number of opportunities exists to increase the telephonic 
liaison beyond that contemplated by the regulations. 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 133 

For instance, two observation posts or batteries of sepa- 
rate units may be located so close together that a short 
length of wire may connect them. A battery of one 
battalion may find itself so close to the command post 
of another that an intercommunication wire can be 
made at a minimum of labor and material. 

All officers interested in observation should seek 
opportunities to increase the amount of telephone 
liaison without an undue expenditure of wire. In this 
fashion, telephone liaison offers an opportunity for ini- 
tiative similar to that of selection and camouflage of 
battery positions. 

CHAPTEE VII. Maps and Records in Command 
Post. — Each command post will keep the following 
records pertaining to its sector : 

Maps showing the location of the command posts, 
battery positions, observation posts, telephonic and 
visual liaison; these last two, approximately exact. 
Threads are pinned to the map at the locations of 
the 0. P^s. Mill scales are made with a zero cor- 
responding to the zero at the 0. P. Thus reports 
from the 0. P. are rapidly located on the map. 
Where any two 0. P's. report the same subject, it 
can be located by intersections, visibility maps of 
the observation posts, fields of fire and dead spaces 
of the batteries. 

A graphic representation of the normal and even- 
tual missions of the batteries, such as barrages, 
counter-preparations, interdiction fires, counter-bat- 



134 THE ARMY OF 1918 

tery, and also the normal and the eventual zones. 

This information will also be kept in the form of 
written orders. When any orders, in any form, have 
been superseded by others, the old orders will be de- 
stroyed to prevent possible confusion. 

A list of ammunition, rations, horses, wagons, harness, 
etc., will also be kept at command posts. 

CHAPTER VIII. Combat.— Offensive combat being 
at the will of the higher command, is precised in orders. 
Attacks, general or limited, are accompanied by a plan 
of artillery made in the army, corps, or division head- 
quarters. The duty of the subordinate commanders is 
to give full effect to the plan of the higher command. 
Firing data are prepared in the batteries and checked 
in the battalions. Regimental and battalion commanders 
assure themselves that all orders have been read and 
comprehended by those intrusted with carrying them 
out. They assure themselves of the efficiency of their 
communications, and they follow the plan of action step 
by step, superintending its execution by their subor- 
dinates. 

The daily activity of the artillery is determined in 
the division and corps, and is laid out in orders issued 
every evening for the following 24 hours. These orders 
specify : 

1. Destructions. 

2. Interdictions and harassing fire. 

3. Concentrations. 

The higher command determines the objectives to be 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 135 

fired upon and divides them among the regiments in 
whose sector they lie. The regiments divide their tar- 
gets between their battalions; the battalions between 
the batteries. The actual conduct of fire reposes in the 
battery commander. The major's supervision is merely 
to assure himself of the captain's competency. In case 
of incompetency, the remedy is a removal of the battery 
commander, not taking over the battery commander's 
duties by the major. 

Defensive Combat. Fire called forth by activity of 
the enemy is defensive in cause, although it may lead 
to fire offensive in effect. The defensive fires are: 

(1) Counter-Battery. — An enemy battery firing upon 
our troops is, in turn, fired upon by our artillery. This 
fire, as a rule, is ordered by the brigade commander 
or commander of the heavy artillery ; but in the case of 
enemy's batteries whose location is known, and which it 
is desired to silence as often as they come into action and 
as rapidly as possible, authority to open fire may be 
given to the battalion or even the battery commander 
upon receipt of information that this battery is firing. 

(2) Reprisal Fire, — When friendly troops are being 
fired upon by enemy batteries which for any reason 
cannot be counter-batteried, our artillery fires upon 
corresponding enemy troops. This fire is ordered by 
the commander of the divisional artillery, generally at 
the request of the organization under fire. Reprisal fire 
may also accompany counter-battery fire. 

(3) Offensive Counter-Preparation. — This is a plan 



136 THE ARMY OF 1918 

of fire upon enemy organizations, trenches, command 
posts, batteries and assembly points. Its object is to 
break up enemy organizations before they can launch 
the assault. It is generally called by order of the com- 
mander of the divisional artillery, upon information of 
the assembling of hostile troops, heavy enemy bombard- 
ments, or other reasons leading him to believe an enemy 
attack is imminent. However, any commanding officer, 
upon receiving what appears to him sufficient evidence 
of a planned enemy attack, must not hesitate to put his 
artillery into action in his normal enemy counter-attack 
zone, or even, if he deems it justifiable, into one of his 
eventual zones. He will, of course, immediately pass 
the information on to his commanding officer. 

(4) Barrage. — Artillery barrage is principally the 
work of 75s and the principal duty of the 75s. The line 
of barrage is laid down by the chief of the divisional 
artillery, who may also call upon a part or all of the 
155s to participate. Barrage is delivered at the request 
of the infantry, either by telephone or signal ; upon the 
request of the artillery liaison officer; or upon a call 
from an airplane, balloon or observation post; or when 
enemy bombardment or rifle fire leads any artillery 
commander to believe that barrage of his organization 
is called for. 

In order to deliver defensive fire without unnecessary 
delay, trail circulars will be marked at the points at 
which the trail shall rest for each normal and special 
barrage and counter-preparation. The weather cor- 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 137 

rections for each principal target will be kept up to 
the moment. The firing data for the different barrages 
and counter-preparations will be prepared separately 
for each gun and will be given to the chiefs of section. 
The executive's command for this fire are the name 
and number frequently repeated, as "Special barrage 
No. 2" or ''Counter-Preparation No. 1.'' Each section 
lays its piece and begins firing immediately. 

When a secondary barrage has been planned, the line 
of which runs across our territory and which is to be 
used only in the event the enemy takes our first posi- 
tions, the firing data will be prepared as in the normal 
barrage, but it will be kept at the battery command 
post, in a place where it can be easily reached but not 
confused with other documents. It will be handed to 
the chiefs of section only at the moment it is to be 
put into effect. 

Fire of opportunity is called for by an airplane, bal- 
loon or terrestrial observer when he sees enemy troops 
or transport within the zone of fire of our artillery. 

The best results are obtained by personal understand- 
ing between elements of command rather than upon 
rigid orders which cannot cover all possible contingen- 
cies. 

CHAPTER IX. Closeup Defense.— Due to a variety 
of reasons, among which may be mentioned the diffi- 
culty of moving the great number of batteries used on 
every front; the necessity of keeping horses far behind 
the batteries; the practice of shelling heavily the rear 



138 THE ARMY OF 1918 

areas, especially the roads ; the use of aviation which will 
discover batteries retreating in the open, even when 
defiladed from terrestrial view ; the efficiency of machine 
gun fire upon large targets, such as gun sections, even at 
long ranges ; the growth of counter-attack as a defensive 
measure, and the greater means of resistance furnished 
by emplaced batteries, barb wire entanglements and 
machine guns — the closeup defense of batteries has 
assumed a more important aspect than it held before 
this war broke out. Therefore, defensive measures for 
holding battery positions have been elaborated. The 
battery commander will reconnoiter the ground and be- 
gin his preparations for closeup defense as soon as he 
occupies a battery position. The guns will easily sweep 
all open territory in front of them. Attackers will have 
to come up some defiladed space or around a flank. 
Battery machine guns will be so placed as to sweep such 
approaches, and ranges will be measured to all points 
from which rifle and machine gun fire can be directed 
on the batteries. Preparations will be made to move 
the pieces as occasion may warrant; especially to fire 
to the flank, where they may take a whole enemy wave in 
enfilade. Wire entanglements will be built around the 
battery; concealed pits will be dug for bombers; hand 
grenades will be drawn and distributed among the pits. 
Where several batteries are grouped together, the officer 
who commands them all (major, colonel or brigadier 
general) will coordinate the plan of defense. All the 
machine guns will be placed according to a common plan. 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 139 

A veritable machine gun barrage even may be possible. 

The howitzers are less capable for use in closeup de- 
fense than the 75s. For this reason the personnel has 
been furnished with rifles. It is not improbable that 
these guns will be firing on some target of great im- 
portance, such as a river crossing. In this case, the de- 
fense should endeavor to leave a sufficient gun crew 
(four or five men per gun) to keep up this fire to the 
last moment. 

The skill and stubbornness of the closeup defense of 
battery positions may decide the fate of a battle. It 
may furnish an opportunity for the greatest individual 
distinction. 

CHAPTER X. The Food Question.— One of the 
most vital elements of this war is food. In the first 
place, there is a shortage of food all over the world. 
In the second place, transportation is limited and ave- 
nues of transportation are limited. A soldier who wastes 
any food not only robs some other mouth but does his 
share uselessly to congest our means of transportation. 
The rule, therefore, must be rigidly established that 
every soldier, officer or man must consume all the food 
he takes. The cook must be instructed not to prepare 
any large surplus of cooked food each meal. He must 
be rigidly compelled to serve all leftover food at the 
next meal. He should be encouraged to prepare soup, 
which will use up his bones and furnish valuable heat 
in the winter and liquid in a palatable form, water be- 
ing frequently unpalatable at the front. 



140 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Conclusion. — Less difficulty has been experienced 
in teaching officers the technique of artillery than in 
getting them to carry out the necessary works — to en- 
force the many rules of conduct which the making of 
war demands. An artillery officer is not a mere com- 
puter of figures or instrument man. He is primarily a 
commander. He must be ceaselessly vigilant to enforce 
compliance of all warlike regulations. 

In the foregoing I imagine that army haters 
will find considerable ^'Prussianism'' in the con- 
stant reference to * ^ Discipline ' ' and *' Enforce- 
ment of Orders.'' Between the soldier and the 
pacifist, political or otherwise, there lies a chasm 
nnbridgable becanse the former thinks, instructs 
and regulates in contemplation of daily peril and 
mortal combat, while the latter lives, breathes and 
has his being in exquisite comfort and perfect 
safety, determined never to risk life or limb or 
time for his country. The soldier imposes hard 
rules upon himself and his subordinates that his 
country may live. The pacifist preaches luxury 
of mind and body that he may profit at the expense 
of his fellow men. The civilian and the uniformed 
soldier lean, naturally, to the easy preachings. 
They do not comprehend the aw^ful penalties of 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 141 

disregarding military rule. To them, for instance, 
the rules of camouflage appear like the **Keep 
off the grass*' signs in the park. They ignore 
the fact that in the first the lives of men are at 
stake, while in the second merely those of a few 
blades of grass. To them absence without leave 
is like playing *' hookey '* from school; desertion, 
like quitting a job. They do not perceive that the 
uninterrupted presence of men is necessary not 
only to carry out the offensive moves of our com- 
mand but to counteract the unexpected moves of 
the enemy. 

The civilian beneficiaries of our victory fail to 
contemplate how terrible to them would have been 
the consequences of defeat. They are prone to 
take up all attacks on * 'military justice.'' They 
do not understand the consequences of a lax ad- 
ministration of military law. 

Not many weeks ago a one-armed boy called 
upon me to tell me that a disregard of my instruc- 
tions to hide from enemy airplanes had cost him 
his arm and had cost the lives of several of his 
comrades. He told how the headquarters com- 
pany, of which he was a member, had marched 



142 THE ARMY OF 1918 

at night to the proximity of the front and sought 
concealment in a woods. The next morning a 
German airplane flew overhead. Everybody ran 
out to gaze at the enemy. Almost immediately 
the German artillery concentration fell upon the 
woods. 

In my last days at Cantigny I was suffering 
severely from influenza and was unable to make 
my daily inspection. Most of the old officers had 
been evacuated from the same cause. On the day 
preceding the assault, however, I proceeded with 
assistance to inspect the observation posts — the 
eyes of the artillery. There I found a newly ar- 
rived lieutenant in charge, the men all exposed 
to enemy fire and not wearing their gas masks. 
A poet might say that any consequences of this 
carelessness to them would be upon their own 
heads, forgetting that men killed, for whatever 
fault, are none the less dead — they are losses to 
our army — ignoring the vital fact that whenever 
the artillery observers are killed or wounded the 
artillery is blind. In this case lack of training 
was responsible, but if it had been weakness or 



A FEW TECHNICAL POINTS 143 

a desire to be an easy boss, of course, no penalty 
could be too severe for such offense. 

Men cannot be allowed, because of their laziness 
or carelessness, to jeopardize the lives of their 
comrades. The sentinel asleep on duty is not an 
heroic or a sentimental figure, even though it is 
accepted as a presidential perquisite to pardon 
him for the applause of the pacifists. The un- 
dutiful soldier in a well trained organization is 
as rare as a criminal in a church congregation. 
It is as much an insult to the men who wore the 
uniform to suggest that all enlisted men are po- 
tential defendants in courts-martial as to say that 
all citizens will probably come before our criminal 
courts. 

In all my service, and with several thousand 
troops, I can remember every criminal case. Two 
were for serious offenses against women. Two 
were for theft. One, a false charge of assault 
with a deadly weapon, which the judge advocate 
directed to have dismissed. Summary court cases, 
the police court cases of the army, were not much 
more numerous, and the only serious penalty ever 
inflicted in summary court was six months' con- 



144 THE ARMY OF 1918 

finement and loss of rank to a sergeant of long 
service who got himself and two young soldiers 
drunk in barracks when he should have been 
on duty. If others' experience was very different 
from mine, it must be because they served with 
worse troops and worse officers. 



CHAPTEE VII 

THE PURSUIT FEOM THE MARNB 

The defeat of the Germans in the second battle 
of the Marne furnished the occasion for giving the 
first American army corps command at the front. 
The French had wished to incorporate all the 
American divisions into French army corps, while 
the American high command desired to build up 
all- American organizations as fast as possible. On 
the side of the French contention it was urged 
that French losses in the war had greatly reduced 
the number of combatant troops, while leaving her 
general staffs, her army and her corps troops al- 
most intact. France, therefore, had a superfluity 
of corps commanders and corps staff officers who 
were first trained in the French school of high 
command, had benefited by the experience of four 
years of war, and now held their present posi- 
tions by demonstrated ability. No American, on 
the other hand, could meet any of these require- 
ments. Prior to our entry into the war no Ameri- 

145 



146 THE ARMY OF 1918 

can officer had ever comrQanded so large a unit 
as a complete division. 

However, there were a number of men qualified 
to command divisions, because the duties of divi- 
sion commanders and the maneuvers to be ordered 
by them are only one step removed from those of 
regimental and brigade commanders, with which 
all studious officers of the regular army were con- 
versant. A division, moreover, like a brigade, 
regiment or battalion, is primarily an obeying 
organization, carrying out orders laid down with 
greater or less precision by a higher authority. 
From commanding a division to commanding a 
corps, however, there was a gap which any Ameri- 
can officer would find great difficulty in crossing. 

An army corps is a planning organization. It 
has to work out the complicated arrangements 
whereby a number of divisions move, relieve, or 
reinforce each other, and at the same time receive 
supplies and munitions; must place troops, sup- 
plies and munitions in such places that they can be 
readily used to meet unforeseen developments 
of battle ; must determine how great a force should 
be concentrated on each portion of the corps front. 



THE PURSUIT FROM THE MARNE 147 

It must also order the very complicated disposal 
of the great quantities of artillery of different 
sizes and ranges, and make plans for the concen- 
trations of fire to destroy the enemy's defense or 
break his attack. 

Since early spring a high ranking American 
general and his staff had been attached to a 
French army corps for instruction to acquire the 
necessary technique to perform these duties. These 
officers had been for some time bending every 
effort to obtain command at the front. 

While the issue of the German offensive re- 
mained in doubt it was manifestly impossible to 
risk a disaster by confiding a large sector of the 
line to this inexperienced, insufficiently trained 
and untried corps organization. With the de- 
feat of the Germans, however, a new situation pre- 
sented itself which rendered the formation of the 
first American army corps at the front not only 
possible but advisable. 

All military text books require the vigorous 
pursuit of a retreating enemy. Against inferior 
troops vigorous pursuit has been crowned with 
success in this war, but wherever the retreating 



148 THE ARMY OF 1918 

troops have been of high order they have not only- 
conducted their retreats safely but, owing to the 
long range of modern cannon, aided by the deadly 
effect of concealed machine guns and the defensive 
strength of barbed wire entanglements, have in- 
flicted disproportionate losses upon their pur- 
suers. 

In 1914 the French had been able to retreat from 
the frontier as ordered and had attacked accord- 
ing to plan. The Germans, in turn, withdrew from 
the Mame, their rear guards checking the vigor- 
ous French pursuit with heavy loss, retired in 
order, and stopped at the Aisne. Now that an- 
other pursuit from the Marne was necessary, the 
French were neither anxious to conduct it them- 
selves nor to command American troops in a pro- 
ceeding which promised heavy losses with small 
prospects of strategic success. On the other hand, 
the Germans would be unable to take advantage of 
any blunders which the American army corps staff 
might make in conducting the pursuit. 

On July 30th I received orders to return home 
to command one of the new regiments being 
formed to proceed to France in the winter. I took 



THE PURSUIT FROM THE MARNE 149 

advantage of the travel order to visit our troops 
in the pursuit from the Marne, stopping at each 
headquarters on the way forward. This brought 
me to our General Headquarters, to the staff of 
the First army, the staff of the First corps and 
to several division and brigade staffs. At each 
stopping place I was impressed by the high char- 
acter, the distinct force and the great native in- 
telligence of the officers. I also missed the per- 
fection of organization and easy running elasticity 
that characterized the French staffs which had 
been trained for years in the higher schools of war 
and had received their post-graduate course dur- 
ing four years at the front. The American com- 
munications were defective and the higher com- 
mands were not'by any means sufficiently informed 
of the location of their front lines. Eoad condi- 
tions back of the troops were far from satisfac- 
tory. The rules of road discipline had not been 
sufficiently taught to the trains which blocked 
each other, not only at junctions but even on 
straight stretches of wide turnpike. Military 
police were few and inefficient. This was the 
inevitable result of the short period of training. 



150 THE ARMY OF 1918 

The staff officers, who in normal times would have 
regulated the moving of the trains, were so taxed 
by their unaccustomed duties in this movement as 
not to have any reserve time to manage the in- 
dispensable service of the rear. 

Eventually I came up to an artillery colonel of 
long overseas service fuming with rage. He had 
reported to a brigadier general from a regular 
division recently arrived in Europe whose brigade 
he was to support. The artilleryman had been 
at the front several days supporting the infantry 
of his own division and should have been notified 
by a higher authority of the relief of the infantry. 
The first information, however, was from his own 
liaison officer, who telephoned that new infantry 
were coming into the front line. After waiting 
for some time for the new infantry brigade com- 
mander to send for him he had finally located the 
latter and after several hours * wait was still with- 
out word from the infantry commander of his 
plans or of the service he wished from the artil- 
lery. 

Let me say for the benefit of the uninitiated that 
in any division the commander of the artillery 



THE PURSUIT FROM THE MARNE 151 

brigade lives beside the division commander, re- 
ceives his orders for artillery support, and advises 
him upon the technical possibilities of the artillery 
arm. In like manner the commander of each regi- 
ment of field pieces sits in with the commander of 
each infantry brigade, while the artillery battalion 
commander is in close touch with the commanders 
* of infantry regiments. The preliminary military 
education of the infantry brigadier in this case 
had not taught him how to avail himself of his 
artillery support and his sojourn in France had 
been too short for him to learn it before entering 
the lines. Perhaps this fault might have been 
remedied at division headquarters except for the 
fact that the general commanding the artillery 
brigade himself had only just landed in France 
without any preliminary study or observation and 
had been ordered to the front to replace a general 
from the engineering corps who now, for the sec- 
ond time, had been relieved from command of an 
artillery brigade because of his inability to grasp 
the duties and maneuvers of that arm. 
In the summer of 1918 the lower ranks were 



152 THE ARMY OF 1918 

very much farther along their road than were the 
staffs and senior officers. 

The public seems to be fairly well educated to 
the necessity of training soldiers, but it has not 
yet been impressed with the greater necessity of 
training officers. It is easier to make a soldier 
than to make a staff officer and to perfect a com- 
pany organization than to perfect a general staff 
or produce a general. 

Instances of inefficiency or insufficient training 
on the part of general officers in the pursuit from 
the Marne aboimd. Time and again infantry were 
ordered to attack without artillery assistance, al- 
though the artillery was in position and ready 
to fire. Formations were frequently used which, 
while laid down in text books before the war, had 
been proven obsolete in actual experience. A great 
deal of greenness among the junior officers also 
showed itself. Troops came under enemy fire 
while still in column and bodies of soldiers crossed 
the skyline and approached the Germans in full 
view, when with a little maneuvering they might 
have kept behind a crest or a woods and have 
avoided detection. Efforts at concealment from 



THE PURSUIT FROM THE MARNE 153 

airplane observation also left mncli to be desired. 
On the other hand, both officers and men demon- 
strated upon every occasion their willingness to 
attack the enemy irrespective of loss. This qual- 
ity is one which can be attained by the troops of 
only a few nations and by them only after suffi- 
cient training and an infusion of the proper dis- 
cipline. It is a glory not only to the troops but to 
the men who led them and to the higher officers 
who inspired their training that they had acquired 
in one year a power of self-immolation for which 
military text books state two years is the irre- 
ducible minimum. 

The imperfection of training of our troops and 
the incapacity of some of their commanding offi- 
cers made our casualties unduly large. However, 
they did not prevent a continuous and heavy pres- 
sure on the German rear. If, as in 1914, the Ger- 
mans withdrew successfully from position to posi- 
tion and stopped upon the line they had chosen, 
they were still further tired and so much nearer 
the breakdown, and their losses, moreover, irre- 
placeable. The American troops which survived 
were the better for the ordeal. They learned many 



154 THE ARMY OF 1918 

valuable lessons. They had increased confidence 
in themselves, and those officers who themselves 
were unable to keep up and absorb the lessons of 
war were beginning to show their incapacity to 
the higher command. 

The soldiers covered themselves withi glory. 
The sins of the pacifists filled many graves. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 

The pursuit of the Germans after their repulse 
at the Mame in July, 1918, ended one of the closing 
chapters in the world war. Secure from defeat, 
the allies began a long and systematic preparation 
to win a victory. This plan they soon abandoned 
to embark upon the successful and final campaign 
in the fall of the year. 

Congress, meanwhile, legislated to extend the 
age provisions of the draft act in order to raise 
another army of a million men. The general staff 
in Washington instructed General Pershing to 
send home officers experienced in combat to com- 
mand new regiments and battalions. As I was 
among the number ordered back, I visited general 
headquarters in hopes of having the order re- 
scinded so far as it applied to me. My old friends 
in the intelligence department, while sympathizing 
with my view, declared that the war would con- 
tinue for two or three years. A high ranking 

155 



156 THE ARMY OF 1918 

artillery officer jokingly said I would miss the 
summer campaign, but would return in time to 
spend another winter in the trenches. 

The commander-in-chief pleasantly but firmly 
refused my request, saying that the important 
movements were over for the year, and that the 
essential work ahead was to bring another army of 
a million Americans to France by March, 1919. 

I intrude this personal experience merely to 
show the opinion of our high command in August, 
1918, as to the duration of the war. Since the 
termination of hostilities I have learned from 
those in authority that the British held the same 
views. 

It was on the 5th of August that I visited our 
general staff. Three weeks later in Washington 
I was told by a member of our diplomatic service 
that the war would be over in a month or two. The 
reasons for this diametrically opposite forecast 
have never been made public. Undoubtedly, the 
successful Franco-British offensives of August 
8th and 21st had something to do with it. I 
imagine that information obtained by our secret 
service from the Central Powers also was partly 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 157 

responsible. I surmise as an obvious fact that 
our secret service agents were in touch with the 
German revolutionaries, just as German secret 
service operatives were in communication with 
malcontents in allied countries. Our men may 
have received information concerning the internal 
condition of Germany which was not known even 
to the German authorities. 

At all events the decision to assume a vigorous 
offensive at once was reached by the allies. The 
return of officers to America to train the new army 
was stopped. The flow of American reinforce- 
ments to France continued in a steady stream, 
although there was not sufficient food in sight to 
feed them in the event of a repulse of the allied 
offensive or a successful resumption of the Ger- 
man submarine campaign. There were not even 
arms enough to equip them. 

From the end of March, Marshal Foch had com- 
mand of all the allied forces. He had been con- 
strained to act strictly on the defensive until July 
18th, when the American and French attack near 
Soissons relieved the German pressure on the west 
side of the salient and compelled its evacuation. 



158 THE ARMY OF 1918 

In the Franco-British attacks of August 8th 
and 21st American infantry participated vigor- 
ously; but their achievements are not the fuU 
measure of American contribution to the victory. 

We have seen, in a previous chapter, how the 
American 1st army corps pounded the retreat- 
ing Germans. If no immediate advantage from 
this costly maneuver was visible, the harvest of 
this American sowing was reaped in Picardy by 
our French and British allies. Ludendorff in his 
book tells how the divisions in reserve in Picardy 
were shifted to resist and to stand behind the sec- 
tor the Americans had punished so hard. Without 
the heavy American attacks on the German rear 
guard, from the Marne to the Vesle, with conse- 
quent heavy American losses, the Franco-British 
success of August 8th would not have been pos- 
sible. 

The initiative was again in Foch's hands and 
it remained with him to the end of the war. He 
now had a larger, better equipped and a less 
fatigued army than Ludendorff. 

A fundamental principle of war is to mass a 
greater number of troops against a lesser num- 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 159 

ber of troops and defeat the smaller number. The 
principle has one drawback; namely, when the 
greater number is successfully massed against the 
smaller number, but fails to defeat that smaller 
number, the attacker has exhausted and disor- 
ganized a greater number of troops than has the 
defender, and has created a situation where his 
opponent has larger numbers of fresh, organized 
troops than himself. He has created the oppor- 
tunity for successful counter-attack. History 
shows that when the defending general has taken 
advantage of this situation, most disastrous re- 
sults have attended the attacker. The successful 
defensive-offensive battles of the world have been 
the most decisive. 

In the Spring the Germans threw superior num- 
bers against the British and defeated them. They 
were stopped by the arrival of French reinforce- 
ments, whose great exertions, as well as numbers 
engaged, however, were much less than those of 
the attacking Grermans, because the French re- 
inforcements simply moved by roads and, to a 
great extent, in automobile trucks and trains, 
while the German attackers, after concentrating 



160 THE ARMY OF 1918 

with great effort, had advanced, fighting, through 
ravines and across plowed fields. Ludendorff had 
struck successfully twice more, and twice unsuc- 
cessfully, before Foch unleashed his counter- 
stroke on July 18th. 

By August all the German troops were tired; 
the British army had enjoyed comparative rest 
since April, and the American army, crossing the 
ocean in a steady flow, was fully effective as a re- 
serve. The experienced troops already were be- 
ing used in offensive action; the partly trained 
troops were in line in quiet sectors, gaining ex- 
perience, wearing down their tired adversaries, 
and at the same time releasing veteran troops 
for maneuver. The newest arrivals were in train- 
ing camps, and the day they would be ready to 
enter the line could be figured mathematically. 
The English and French continued a vigorous of- 
fensive in Picardy and Flanders, while the tired 
American divisions of the Marne salient were re- 
organized and prepared for further battle. 

Upon this occasion the American authority was 
extended. General Pershing in person took the 
field as commander of the American 1st army, 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 161 

under the command of General Petain as army 
group commander. The St. Mihiel salient was 
selected as the ground for the operation. 

Some controversy has arisen as to who planned 
the battle of St. Mihiel. Some say the plans were 
drawn by the American 1st army staff and ac- 
cepted without revision by General Petain. Others 
say they were French plans and accepted in their 
entirety by the Americans. Between these state- 
ments there seems but little purpose in argument. 
Indeed, the general plan of operation was obvious. 

Of course, all the technique that was used in 
the battle of St. Mihiel had been acquired by us 
from the French. We had accepted their organiza- 
tion of infantry regiments and had learned our 
minor tactics under their instructors. Our ar- 
tillery was entirely armed with French guns, the 
power and limitations of which only the French 
could know. All our tanks were made in France, 
and the aviation was principally French and Eng- 
lish. The organization of the artillery fire was, 
for the most part, under French officers serving in 
the American army as ^* chiefs of corps artillery." 
Furthermore, the American 1st army still lacked 



162 THE ARMY OF 1918 

a great deal of the equipment necessary to conduct 
army operations, and this, with its personnel, was 
lent by General Petain. 

It is not by hiding the military shortcomings of 
the American government behind the brilliant 
achievements of American soldiers that we are 
going to save future Americans from the handi- 
caps under which we fought the war. Nor is it 
fair to our fallen companions, nor to future gen- 
erations, that we should claim credit for military 
excellence that Congress and our executives had 
put beyond our powers to attain. 

The French had begun to organize the St. Mihiel 
salient for an attack before the American 1st di- 
vision occupied it in January, 1918. They sup- 
plied all the materiel; and they furnished prac- 
tically all the technical and tactical services. If 
the American staff officers did write the orders for 
the attack, they did it after having studied under 
French commanders for fifteen months, and they 
could not have done so when they arrived in 
France. 

America 's contribution to the battle was 500,000 
men. Officers and men had learned in France 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 163 

what American pacifists had forbidden them to 
learn at home — how to maneuver in modern bat- 
tle; and they were willing to suffer untold hard- 
ships and advance unflinchingly against the 
enemy. Americans glory is that American troops 
went forward across muddy fields, at heart-break- 
ing speed, carrying out well-prepared orders, and 
by the very vigor of their assault paralyzing the 
German defense. 

For Ihe battle of St. Mihiel, which was the first 
American offensive on a great scale, and yet not 
one requiring the entire American strength in 
France, General Pershing had assembled sub- 
stantially all of his better trained divisions and 
his three best organized army corps staffs. 

Even while preparing for this battle he also 
was preparing for a larger battle, since known as 
the Battle of the Argonne. 

The battle of the Argonne was projected by 
Marshal Foch as a gigantic maneuver in which the 
American 1st army to the east of the forest and 
the French 4th army to the west were to advance 
side by side, outflanking this formidable defense. 

General Foch had wished to constitute two 



164 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Franco-American armies under French army 
commanders. Doubtless, lie felt greater confi- 
dence in his better trained, more experienced and 
fully tried French army commanders than he did 
in the American high command. He also was in- 
fluenced by the fact that French armies possessed 
all the technical equipment and transportation 
necessary to the conduct of armies, while the 
American armies did not. He may or may not 
have been influenced by personal and national 
considerations. Because of its enormous losses, 
the French army had decreased in size, throwing 
out of employment a number of generals and staff 
ofiicers who were anxious to command American 
troops. There was national advantage also in 
having French generals commanding American 
troops at the end of the war. 

General Foch's plan would have been correct 
if a long war had been in prospect. The end was 
in sight, however, and it was essential for Ameri- 
cans position at the peace table, and for American 
safety after the peace, that the closing of hos- 
tilities should leave an American army in the field 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 165 

under command of generals experienced and 
proven in battle. 

General Pershing", therefore, was right in lead- 
ing an all American army into the Argonne and in 
borrowing such French equipment and such staff 
and other officers as he needed. 

It is not my purpose to cull from official and 
unofficial accounts the progress of the forty days' 
battle, but to point out circumstances which are 
of value to our army and which have not received 
sufficient recognition. 

The American 1st army was not a well oiled 
machine. It was lacking in many essential re- 
spects : it was short of its own artillery, of trans- 
port, of signal equipment, of aviation, of horses ; 
and, as indicated before, many of its divisions 
were not complete. It also was deplorably weak 
in generals. 

For his initial assault between the Argonne and 
the Meuse General Pershing chose his least ex- 
perienced divisions. Indeed, most of these units 
were not divisions at all, because they did not 
possess their divisional artillery. A division con- 
sists of infantry, artillery and auxiliary troops, all 



166 THE ARMY OF 1918 

of which should be trained to act together for the 
common benefit. A division without artillery is 
as incomplete as an infantry regiment without 
machine guns. 

It will be remembered that the exigencies of the 
allies following the defeat of March 21st had in- 
duced or compelled the Americans to send over in- 
fantry without artillery. In consequence, these 
infantry organizations were forced to fight 
through the Argonne battle without their divi- 
sional artillery, a handicap which cost them 
severely in loss of life, but which their valor over- 
came. These lost lives cannot be blamed upon any 
section of the American army. Our allies are re- 
sponsible to a certain degree, but, of course, the 
chief blame rests upon those pacifists who pre- 
vented us from being prepared to protect our 
soldiers in this war. 

Looking back with a perspective of more than 
a year, it is safe to say that General Pershing was 
absolutely right in engaging his less organized 
and less trained troops, while holding his better 
organized and trained troops in reserve, as 
Napoleon was wont to employ his Imperial Guard. 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 167 

The hardest part of an offensive, under conditions 
of modern artillery preparation, is not the first 
assault, but the more or less confused battle which 
develops as the troops move forward. 

It has been suggested by students of the battle 
that if the best troops had been used in the initial 
assault, the war might have been terminated that 
week of September 26-October 2. Never were 
troops more surprised than were the Germans on 
the morning of the Argonne attack. Only five 
divisions opposed the American advance, which 
penetrated deeply from the first day and almost 
broke through the line before German reserves 
were brought up on the third day. It has been 
argued that if the seasoned divisions, assisted by 
their divisional artillery, had made the first attack 
they certainly would have broken clear through 
the German line and compelled a retirement which 
would have given us Sedan before the week end. 
If we could be sure that this is what would have 
happened, we can agree that it would have been 
better to engage the seasoned divisions ; but noth- 
ing is certain in war, and least of all the moves 
of your opponent. 



168 THE ARMY OF 1918 

As the battle was fought German reserves and 
American reinforcements simultaneously arrived 
upon the scene, and there, in a series of bitter en- 
gagements called the second phase of the battle, 
the Aanericans constantly gained ground until 
brought to a stand on October 14th. If the trained 
divisions had been used, and if they had broken 
the German line the first or second day, a general 
German collapse might have resulted; yet, other 
things might have happened. Driven by the im- 
minence of their destruction, the Germans might 
have massed a larger number of reserves, and our 
trained assault divisions might have faced battle, 
tired and farther from their bases than they were 
when they entered the second phase as fresh 
troops. If the American veterans had become ex- 
hausted, they would have had to be relieved by 
less experienced and less trained troops, and the 
very reverse of a complete victory might have 
taken place. 

Tested by the possibility of unexpected success. 
General Pershing *s judgment remains sound. 
Tested by the possibility of mischance, it was 
equally correct. What if the American and the 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 169 

Frencli intelligence had been mistaken as to the 
number of German troops in readiness for the 
defense? What if the assault had met such a 
devastating fire as shriveled up the army of Gen- 
eral Nivelle in 1917 and destroyed the best assault 
divisions of France? General Pershing's conduct 
is justified by every analysis. His army marched 
through to victory. Let it not be forgotten that 
General Ludendorff's brilliant breaches of our 
lines in March and May, in which he used his as- 
sault troops to break the line, led him to disaster. 
Of the great difficulties under which insuffi- 
ciently trained and organized divisions labored 
there is, unfortunately, no comprehensive and au- 
thentic record. In all of them knowledge of mod- 
ern battle conditions was wanting. They had re- 
ceived their trench mortars and their infantry 
cannons only a short time before and did not know 
how to use them. Some regiments marched 
through the whole campaign without taking these 
indispensable weapons from their trains. They 
were, in consequence, badly in need of materiel 
with which to attack German machine gun nests at 
close range. Not understanding their own arms, 



170 THE ARMY OF 1918 

and still less imderstandiiig the artillery arm, 
they called for 75s to accompany the infantry. 
Unfortunately, they did not furnish the drivers 
with sabers or sharpen the teeth of the horses — 
the only way in which they could have expected 
to hurt the enemy with 75s on the infantry firing 
line. 

The modern field piece is a long range weapon. 
It ranges up to 11,000 meters and is most effective 
between 7,000 and 2,500 meters. At a less range 
than that, because of its flat trajectory, its diffi- 
culty of concealment and of transportation, it is 
no match for the machine gun, the infantry can- 
non or the long range trench mortar. Even so, a 
school of officers has been formed which desires to 
return our artillery to the role it played in the 
days of the Civil War, when artillery losses were 
large and artillery results small. They have cited 
in support of their contentions the use of the field 
piece by the Germans in infantry waves. The 
point is not at all well taken. The Germans lacked 
tanks and had to seek fire power in the front line 
by other means. For this they used an ample 
number of trench mortars very superior to those 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 171 

of tlie allies. They made special mounts on low 
wheels for a small number of 77 m.m. guns to 
serve certain special purposes. Finally, they did 
engage some 77s at close range with very bad re- 
sults. This maneuver was not a development of 
the war but a remaining erroneous fragment of 
their former artillery instruction. 

A very good impression of what an under- 
trained division suffered can be had by studying 
the testimony before the Senate committee sup- 
porting and contradicting the charges of Governor 
Allen of Kansas, and from the history of the 35th 
Division. 

From the latter I extract a communication from 
the chief of staff of the 1st army to the commander 
of the division : 

HEADQUARTERS, FIRST ARMY 

AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES, 

FRANCE 

Office of the Chief of Staff 

October 26, 1918. 

From: Chief of Staff, 1st Army. 

To : Commanding General, 35th Division. 

Subject: Conclusion of an inspection of the con- 



172 THE ARMY OP 1918 

duct of the 35t]i Division during attack in recent 
operations. 

1. The Army Commander directs me to transmit 
to you the following conclusions of an inspection 
of the conduct of the 35th Division during its at- 
tack in our recent operations. He desires that 
these conclusions be given the greatest weight in 
the organization and training of your Division. 

2. These conclusions have been deduced from 
the testimony of several eye-witnesses and are 
transmitted to you with the desire not only to 
point out the causes for undesirable conditions 
but also to give you a basis for the future train- 
ing of the 35th Division. 

Conclusions: 

1st. That the 35th Division at the commence- 
ment of operations, September 26th, was not a 
well disciplined combat unit, and the many officers 
with the Division were not well-trained leaders. 

2nd. That the Division Staff was not efficient 
or well organized. 

3rd. That the changes in the Staff and Brigade 
and Eegimental Commanders greatly handi- 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 173 

capped the Division Commander in the proper 
functioning of his Division. 

4th. That after the attack started there was no 
system of liaison. Even the runner failed to fol- 
low the axis of liaison prescribed. 

5th. That brigade and regimental commanders 
failed to make use of the means of liaison at their 
disposal and failed to keep in touch with their 
higher commanders. 

6th. That the failure of all commanders to keep 
a headquarters established where communications 
could be received was inexcusable. 

7th. That the action of brigade and regimental 
commanders in going far to the front and out of 
all communication resulted in their having no 
more effect on the action than so many company 
or platoon commanders, and prevented the head- 
quarters in rear from sending orders to units in 
front. 

8th. That if commanders had remained in their 
headquarters or made provisions for messages 
reaching them immediately, they would have been 
able to have had a fair knowledge of conditions, 



174 THE ARMY OF 1918 

and perhaps have straightened out the many diffi- 
culties that arose. 

9th. That the intermingling, confusion and 
straggling which commenced shortly after H hour 
showed poor discipline, lack of leadership, and 
probably poor preparation. 

10th. That it was a serious error for both the 
Division Commander and the Chief of Staff to 
leave their Headquarters at the same time. 

11th. That the nve attacks which the Division 
made followed each other so closely that there 
was no opportunity after the evening of Septem- 
ber 26th to reorganize and get the various units 
in hand. 

12th. That after September 27th the Division 
was really one in name only, as maneuvering 
power with intact units, except the Engineers, 
ceased to exist. 

13th. That the casualties among the officers 
were undoubtedly responsible for a great deal of 
the disorganization. 

14th. That most of the straggling and confu- 
sion was caused by men getting lost and not hav- 
ing leaders, and not from any deliberate design 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 175 

to go to the rear in order to avoid further fighting. 

15th. That the fighting spirit and bravery of 
officers and men were excellent. 

16th. That the failure to have telephone and 
wireless communication forward to include Regi- 
ments, and the failure to use the proper code call 
to Corps Headquarters, was due to the inefficiency 
of Lt. Colonel George A. Wieczorek, Signal Corps, 
then Division Signal Officer. 

17th. That the Artillery Commander, Brig. 
Gen. L. G. Berry, failed to cooperate with and 
make full use of the Air Service until ordered 
to do so. 

H. A. DRUM, 
Chief of Staff. 

The criticism seems sweeping, the more so that 
the division commander and brigade commanders 
and a part of the colonels were officers of our regu- 
lar army who would be supposed by the general 
public to know the principles so confidently set 
down by General Drum. The fact is that few, 
if any, of our regular officers knew any of these 
principles before they went to France, and, of 
course, no other officers did. 



176 THE ARMY OF 1918 

It must not be thought that disorganization in 
the army was confined to National Guard troops. 
An excellent article in the Field Artillery Journal 
shows the complete disorganization of the 3rd 
artillery brigade in the battle of July 15th. This 
brigade was gallant, as were all American troops, 
but its commanding officer and its colonels had 
rendered themselves powerless to exert the slight- 
est influence upon the course of the combat. 

Indeed, officers of the 1st division will remem- 
ber in their early training maneuvers a simulated 
attack against an imaginary enemy which broke 
down solely through the inability of officers of all 
ranks to carry out the parts assigned to them by 
their instructors. It is training and experience, 
not inspiration and valor alone, which make pos- 
sible success in modern warfare. 

To the difficulties arising from lack of training 
were added in many instances unskillful general- 
ship. 

It has long been the law in America that general 
officers shall be appointed by the President, sub- 
ject to the confirmation of the Senate. In the 
emergency of a war for which he had refused to 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 177 

prepare, the executive was unwilling to assume 
this responsibility and called upon a number of 
high ranking officers in the war college to recom- 
mend a method for selecting general officers. This 
board recommended that all officers not notori- 
ously incompetent should be promoted in the order 
of seniority in the regular service and that all 
officers upon reaching the retiring age of 64 should 
be retired from any service. 

The ruling was made upon the assumption that 
a soldier was senile at 64 but at the height of his 
power at 63 years, 11 months and 30 days. The 
rule also held that a regular army officer of every 
branch was equally competent to command in any 
other branch. An engineer might command artil- 
lery, a cavalryman tanks, or an artilleryman avia- 
tion, although, as turned out to be the case, he 
might never have given ^Ye minutes' thought fo 
these services before his assignment. It was also 
the doctrine that a general officer needed no train- 
ing and that failure to command successfully, 
which led to his removal from one command, did 
not incapacitate him for reassignment to a newer 



178 THE ARMY OF 1918 

and less experienced organization, wMcli, there- 
fore, needed a still abler commander. 

The creation of generals by seniority was popu- 
lar in the regular army because while under it 
many inexcusable promotions were made, and 
many ridiculous assignments, still every officer in 
the service received more than enough promotion 
to satisfy his natural ambition and every one was 
saved the humiliation and even the danger of 
humiliation of being overslaughed ; that is to say, 
of having an officer junior to him in the service 
promoted over his head. 

The rule adopted was carried through syste- 
matically and no consideration of the good of the 
service or the lives of soldiers was allowed to in- 
terfere with the course of promotion. Officers ap- 
proaching the retiring age were assigned to duty 
or given high commands or sent on to visit the 
battle front as though to prepare them for active 
service and then retired as the clock struck their 
sixty-fourth birthday. Not only was the time 
spent on their training wasted, but the experience 
of their successors was delayed by so much, and 
divisions whose commanders had just been retired 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 179 

were sent overseas under generals they did not 
know and who did not know them. 

I believe that General Pershing was bitterly op- 
posed to this rule. In the higher commands which 
came under his personal supervision he made as- 
signments without reference to seniority, but in a 
great army where generals are numbered by the 
hundreds the assignments and removals, or most 
of them, had to be done by rule, and the rule was 
that every general, from whatever branch of the 
service, should be considered competent to com- 
mand every other branch until he had proven his 
incapacity beyond the reasonable doubt of staff 
officers remote from the actual scene of hostilities. 

Late in the war, when the qualifications of vari- 
ous officers had been made plain, the removals of 
generals became so common as to provoke much 
comment and some resentment. Even if injustice 
may have been shown toward a few individuals, 
it was as nothing compared to the frightful in- 
justice to the millions of soldiers whose lives had 
been jeopardized, and many of them forfeited, 
while a few generals were being given a **full 
and fair'' try-out. 



180 THE ARMY OF 1918 

The re^lar army is not and is not intended to 
be a self-governing organization. The very prin- 
ciple of all military organization is subordination 
to a higher authority. "Wherever soldiers of any 
rank are allowed to select their leaders intolerable 
harm is done. We learned from the Civil War and 
other wars not to allow enlisted soldiers to select 
their company officers. Our government, unfortu- 
nately, did not understand that it should not allow 
commissioned officers to select their generals. To 
be sure, a strong policy aimed toward the appoint- 
ment of the most competent soldiers to high com- 
mand would have bred a great deal of ill-feeling 
among the officers not so chosen, but any method 
of selection would have been better than that of 
pure seniority. On the basis of military educa- 
tion, the chief engineer of any railroad would be 
as competent to command a division as an army 
engineer whose life had been spent building break- 
waters and dredging rivers, while the head of any 
manufacturing concern would have more natural 
qualifications to command the aircraft organiza- 
tion than any officer in the United States army. 

The chief blame for this great evil must lie 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 181 

where the Constitution puts it, on the eonunander- 
in-chief of the United States army and upon his 
secretary of war, rather than upon the unfortu- 
nate committee of soldiers upon whom was loaded 
the responsibility and who proved unable to resist 
the impulses of ambition and the importunities of 
life-long friends. 

In the divisions that first came to France con- 
siderable progress in weeding out incompetents 
was made, more noticeably in the lower ranks 
than among the general officers ; but in the newly 
arrived divisions little of either was possible. Con- 
sequently there resulted a great deal of mishan- 
dling of troops at a time when skillful leadership 
was more than ever essential. 

As early as the second day of the Argonne the 
removal of general officers began, and it continued 
in increasing numbers until the end. 

The failure to provide the army with the best 
available generals caused two hardships to the 
men : First, the hardship of serving under incom- 
petents; second, after the removal of these, the 
hardship of serving under new officers, frequently 
assigned from strange organizations. 



18^ THE ARMY OF 1918 

Among hundreds of stories concerning tlie ig- 
norance of general officers throughout the war, I 
give three, because I have proven their authen- 
ticity : 

A battery of artillery was skillfully camouflaged 
at the edge of a muddy, much traveled road. Pass- 
ing vehicles threw mud over the camouflage and 
onto the guns, thus improving the camouflage. A 
general officer, after complaining several times of 
the dirty guns, ordered the road back of the bat- 
tery position to be swept clean and kept so. For 
the information of civilians, I will explain that a 
German air photograph showing a traveled road 
swept clean for a length of one hundred yards 
would cause such attention to be directed to that 
spot as would certainly discover the battery. This 
general was not an incompetent; he was merely 
new to warfare. Afterwards he attained high 
rank in the army. 

An infantry major, in advancing, left two of his 
companies under cover, and went forward with 
two. Experiencing stubborn resistance, he sent a 
runner to bring up the two companies in support. 
The runner met a general but recently arrived 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 183 

from America and assigned to command a brigade. 

^^Here, where are you going?" shouted the gen- 
eral. 

^*I am carrying an order to bring up the sup- 
porting companies of the battalion, sir," replied 
the runner. 

*^Well, I will have you understand that nobody 
in my brigade goes to the rear," answered the 
general. *^You return to your company." 

When the runner reached his battalion com- 
mand post he reported to the major, who again 
sent him back for the two companies, with orders 
to hide behind a bush if he saw any general officers 
coming along! 

During the advance in the latter days of the 
Argonne, an infantry battalion was ordered to 
clear out a ravine, a mile and a quarter long, oc- 
cupied by the Germans. Shortly before H hour 
the division commander met a battery of artillery 
changing position. He halted it and directed the 
captain to unlimber and execute **a heavy bar- 
rage" on the ravine for twenty minutes. 

He then sent a message to the battalion com- 
mander to delay his attack, as he had ordered a 



184 THE ARMY OF 1918 

heavy artillery barrage on the ravine to precede 
the assault. The major, who had already begun 
his attack, anticipating a devastating flood of 
shell, pulled his men back to await the artillery 
fire. 

The artilleryman, being in a position where he 
could obtain no observation of the ravine, and 
having no time to orient his position to obtain ac- 
curate fire, merely assured himself that his range 
was sufficient to clear the American troops and 
fired for twenty minutes. The infantry major 
did not even perceive the artillery fire, so wild 
and thin it was; he lost three hours and a half 
waiting for assistance which had never been pos- 
sible. 

To deliver supporting fire to an attack a bat- 
tery of 75s should not be given a front of more 
than 200 yards to sweep; and unless it has ob- 
servation to regulate, it must have accurate maps 
and orienting data. 

This division commander, whose function it 
was, among other things, to command three regi- 
ments of artillery, did not know even the simplest 
principles of artillery fire. But I do not blame 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 185 

the general; he was an energetic and gallant offi- 
cer. I do feel, though, that the army is to blame 
for raising to the rank of major generals officers 
who had not been instructed in the arms which 
they were to employ. 

The first phase of the Argonne consisted of the 
initial assault of the greener divisions of the 
army. This assault lost momentum as the divi- 
sions became exhausted or disorganized. New di- 
visions took their places as fast as they could be 
moved over congested roads, and, German rein- 
forcements arriving, there ensued a period of dis- 
jointed attacks known as the second phase. 

In this respect the battles of the Argonne re- 
semble those of Verdun and the Somme with the 
exception that now the allies were so greatly pre- 
ponderant in numbers of men and munitions that 
a battle of attrition was as certain to end in vic- 
tory as in former cases it was bound to be inde- 
cisive. For this reason the policy of continuing 
the assault night and day with all the means at 
hand deserved the highest military commendation. 

The minor tactics employed, however, cannot 
receive the same degree of praise. The second 



186 THE ARMY OF 1918 

phase of the Argonne was strategically successful 
in that it wore down the weakening enemy. Tac- 
tically, it was a series of failures. Soldiers are 
taught that a tactical victory consists of posses- 
sion of the battlefield at the end of the action. 
In the days of spears and shock tactics this was 
clearly the case. Leaders sought security in the 
superiority of the location of the ground upon 
which they placed their troops and upon the rigid- 
ity of their formation. Pushed off this ground, 
the troops inevitably lost the regularity of their 
order and were doubly defeated. 

When firearms again brought extreme mobility 
into warfare the advantage of holding a certain 
piece of ground decreased to the vanishing point. 
The English troops on King's Mountain were at a 
disadvantage and their successive successful 
charges against the Tennessee militia were totally 
unavailing because these never stood before the 
enemy, but kept shooting at him from all sides. 

The introduction of artillery into mobile war- 
fare gave to possession of the battlefield its old 
importance. No matter how mobile the artillery, 
once engaged it could not be withdrawn from be- 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 187 

fore a vigorous attack. Placed practically in line 
with its infantry, sometimes in front of it, it was 
doomed to capture, if the infantry were driven 
back. Conquest of the battlefield, therefore, meant 
conquest of the enemy ^s artillery, and as an army, 
no matter how mobile, without artillery cannot op- 
pose an army with artillery, it meant victory. 

The long range of modern artillery lent a new 
aspect to warfare — ^what is termed the ** depth'' of 
the battlefield. 

Where Napoleon's cavalry could re-form in per- 
fect security a few hundred yards distant from the 
British squares at Waterloo, the modern soldier 
is in range of the enemy at many miles. In mod- 
ern defensive warfare artillery may be placed sev- 
eral thousand meters behind the infantry line and 
fire upon the enemy at varying distances in 
front of the line, according to the range of the 
guns. In a previous chapter it has been related 
how General Gouraud planned his defensive battle 
of Champagne in depth and withdrew his infantry 
from position to position while firing upon the ad- 
vancing Germans with cannon, machine guns and 
rifles. So far had he extended this principle that 



188 THE ARMY OF 1918 

some of his artillery could not reach the Germans 
until they had advanced a considerable distance 
inside the original French first line. 

Under these conditions a tactical success can 
only be gained by an advance which overruns and 
captures the defensive artillery. Any advance 
less than this is merely a march forward under 
enemy fire which becomes more effective at every 
step, while the protecting barrage of the offensive 
artillery gives less support. When the assault is 
stopped, if it is stopped short of the defensive ar- 
tillery, the defensive artillery is moved back. 
Under these circumstances the attacker must suf- 
fer much more heavily than the defender. 

Many mistakes were made in the Argonne in 
ordering attacks which did not even contemplate 
overrunning the enemy *s artillery, and these in 
spite of the fact that the tactical principle above 
enunciated had been acted upon by American 
troops when on the defensive and should have 
been thoroughly understood by all general and 
staff ofiicers. 

The appreciation of this principle is the line of 
demarcation between the second and third periods 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 189 

of the battle. For the decisive attack all available 
artillery was mobilized on the front of the 5th 
corps. Both the corps commander and the chief 
of the corps artillery were skillful officers whose 
experience dated back to the early days of the 
1st division. All the artillery was organized to 
fire according to one comprehensive plan. The 
rolling barrage was planned to sweep 11,000 
meters. The infantry was ordered to capture all 
the enemy defenses, however deep. The assault 
was a complete success. Everywhere the German 
infantry was thrown back and finally the 2nd divi- 
sion broke clear through and opened the road to 
Sedan. 

The Argonne will be known as Pershing's battle 
and so brings up the personality of the com- 
mander-in-chief. 

One of the questions I am asked most frequently 
is: What about Pershing? "What do you think 
of Pershing! What was Pershing, anyhow? I 
can add no details to the story of General Persh- 
ing's early career. He is a graduate of West 
Point. At the battle of Santiago, Cuba, he com- 
manded a troop of cavalry. In the Philippines he 



190 THE ARMY OF 1918 

attracted attention by his aggressiveness in a 
campaign against one of tlie savage tribes. Pres- 
ident Roosevelt, in his process of vitalizing the 
Regular army and changing it from a constabulary 
into a military force, promoted him from the rank 
of captain to that of brigadier general. In 1916 
he commanded the unsuccessful expedition to cap- 
ture Francisco Villa. His conduct of this expedi- 
tion received general commendation, it being thor- 
oughly understood that the limitations put upon 
him by the War Department made his success 
impossible. "When he was ordered to Europe in 
1917 as commander-in-chief he was generally 
recognized as the proper man for the place, if 
General Wood was to be passed over. 

I met him for the first time in Paris, and my 
acquaintanceship with him was only that of a 
major on staff duty with his commanding general. 
From the day I reported to duty I have seen him 
five times. In August, 1917, he sent for me to 
receive my report of Erzberger's secret peace 
offer to the allies, of which I have spoken before. 
The second time was when I asked permission to 
leave staff duty for the line. And I saw him twice 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 191 

during his inspections of the front, the last time 
during a heavy German artillery fire. I mention 
this because of the pusillanimous suggestion that 
General Pershing absented himself from the firing 
line. I saw him last when I asked to remain in 
France.* 

The demands upon General Pershing were 
varied and difficult. For the first few months 
after his arrival in Europe he was compelled to 
appear at many places as tangible evidence of the 
coming of the American army. He had to receive 
receptions, eulogies and flatteries such as never 
before were showered upon an American officer. 
His friends wondered whether he could keep his 
head after such ovations. He could and he did. 
He was responsible for the organization that was 
to receive, transport, feed, equip and munition 
the huge army coming from America with nothing 
but the clothes on its back. This task was suc- 
cessfully accomplished. In March, 1918, he had 
to make one of the gravest military decisions that 
ever confronted a general. The allies were being 

*I have met General Pershing twice since this chapter was 
written. 



192 THE ARMY OF 1918 

badly beaten. Within the next two months they 
might be defeated and destroyed. Americans 
reaching France could not be made effective fight- 
ing forces in twice that time. 

Should he bring them over and risk their cap- 
ture or destruction by a victorious enemy before 
they were capable of fighting, or should he leave 
them safely in America, where they could protect 
our shores against a triumphant foe I 

People who see only that the Germans were 
finally overcome can never realize how close the 
Kaiser came to victory, and they never will ap- 
preciate how momentous was the problem faced 
by ijreneral Pershing. Another might have taken 
the safer but the weaker course. 

In September he was compelled to decide the 
question of putting our newly arrived troops into 
the offensive while unequipped and untrained. 

Under other circumstances it would have been 
criminal to put many of these formations into a 
major battle. Only in the last extremity of defeat 
or to secure a victory almost within grasp should 
the newly arrived divisions have been allowed to 
fight a trained and still organized enemy. The 



THE AMERICAN OFFENSIVES 19S 

second condition existed, and General Pershing 
showed irreproachable military judgment in 
throwing every resource of his command, every 
soldier, trained and untrained, into the fire. 

The Battle pf the Argonne in a measure re- 
sembles the Battle of the Wilderness. With the 
superiority of force at our disposal only an iron 
will to hammer away irrespective of loss was 
necessary. But this quality was indispensable. 
Our losses inevitably would be enormous and 
our efforts not spectacular. Criticisms of the 
Argonne we have had, and more will be forth- 
coming, and very just ones; but there can be no 
fair criticism of General Pershing for throwing 
every available man into the attack that ended 
the war. 

We got only the armistice as a result, and 
a peace. If the Germans could definitely have 
stopped the allied advance before winter, how 
much worse might be the plight of the world to- 
day! 

What heights General Pershing might have at- 
tained as a strategist or a tactician had he been in 
the war long enough to learn all that the Russian^ 



194 THE ARMY OF 1918 

French and German generals knew, it is futile to 
ask. No man can do more than meet an emerg- 
ency. Pershing did this. For the numerous vexa- 
tions, inconveniences, and even unnecessary hard- 
ships which our troops underwent let us place 
the blame where it belongs — on America's refusal 
to prepare for war — and not hold responsible 
men who did their best in a hurry and with the 
few miserable tools they were given. 

It may be remarked in closing that General Per- 
shing is not an officer who rose according to regu- 
lar army methods. While still a captain he was 
picked out for high command. If all the other 
American generals had been selected in the same 
way our success would have been greater. 



CHAPTER IX 

SOME ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 

The armistice found the army still vigorous and 
its efficiency much increased by its experience in 
the great battle. Men of real military power had 
come to the front — and, not the least important, 
were fully aware that they had not learned all 
there was in the military art. Schools were im- 
mediately formed to study the lessons of the cam- 
paign and maneuvers were held to in&truct all 
arms and all ranks in the evolutions which had 
proven the most successful and the most econom- 
ical of human life. The American army had ap- 
proached — perhaps it had reached — the stage 
where it could function without the assistance of 
French officers. 

Let it be our effort to continue the development 
of our military from the point it attained in the 
war and not let it drop back to a position where 
it will need foreign arms and a yearns instruction 

195 



196 THE ARMY OF 1918 

by foreign officers, under the protection of a for- 
eign navy, to get ready for the field. 

We have demobilized. This was necessary. We 
have, however, given up every form of organiza- 
tion which we so painfully built up during the war 
and which we will need to protect us in any strug- 
gle which the rivalries of the world may force 
upon us. Surely, an intelligent people will not 
allow this condition of helplessness to continue. 

Enough time has passed to cool any ill-will 
which has sprung up from personal injustices, 
themselves caused by the rotten military system 
preceding our entry into the war. Let us consider 
dispassionately how we can form a skeleton organ- 
ization best adapted for rapid mobilization. 

In retrospect it is not difficult to measure the 
services of all factors that contributed to our 
success. The Regular army, of course, played by 
far the greater part. It was the reservoir from 
which the fundamentals of our military instruc- 
tion were drawn. It had already largely instructed 
the National Guard in 1916. It continued this in- 
struction the following year, furnishing the bulk 
of the high ranking officers for that organization. 



ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 197 

It also examined the fitness of the National Guard 
officers and got rid of the not inconsiderable num- 
ber of incompetents it contained. It furnished 
instructors for the Officers ' Training Camps and it 
furnished all the regimental commanders for the 
National army. 

The Eegular army also furnished the principal 
officers of all the general staffs. In sincerity, in 
patriotism, and in bravery on the battlefield its 
members lived up to the high expectations of its 
admirers. However, it had certain defects which 
it was unable to remedy of itself and there was in 
this war no higher authority capable of rendering 
it this service. It could not control its group feel- 
ing. The system of promotion put into effect by 
it regarded too highly the career of the profes- 
sional soldier and too little the success of the 
war. The selection of generals merely in order of 
seniority was a grave offense against the army. 
The rapid promotion given to the younger officers 
was not in itself detrimental to efficiency. These 
officers shone in their new positions with great 
brilliancy. 

In dealing with the question of supplies at home, 



198 THE ARMY OF 1918 

its failure was almost complete. The fault here, 
however, does not rest upon the army officers as 
much as upon the civilians in the War Depart- 
ment, not only those who officiated during the war 
but those who had failed to make a plan of co- 
operation between the military and industry long 
before. 

The administration in Europe was, on the whole, 
exceedingly good, such failures as were evinced 
being due to the herculean tasks imposed and the 
necessity of improvising organizations which had 
never existed even on paper. 

Little praise, however, can be given to the Reg- 
ular service for its conduct of aeronautics either 
in Europe or at home. It failed grossly to deliver 
the necessary planes. It shone in no respect, and 
it is to be noted that the famous fliers whose gal- 
lantry relieved the monotony of unsuccess did not 
come from the Regular service. It is proper to 
add that one exception to this unfortunate recital 
is Brigadier General William Mitchell, who, fre- 
quently suppressed in Europe, is now the chief of 
aeronautics, and who, it may be hoped, will rescue 



ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 199 

that branch of the service from its unenviable 
position. 

In military education the Regular army ranks 
high. Considering the paucity of opportunity for 
study and the mistreatment it received at the 
hands of two succeeding administrations, the mis- 
erable conditions under which it was kept along 
the Mexican frontier, its achievements in this line 
are astounding. The average in intelligence and 
character of its members is elevated, and men of 
capacity for great command were shown to be 
present, although their arrival in position was 
delayed by the cabal of the senior officers to retain 
active rank. 

The training camps furnished a great majority 
of the officers in the war. The course of instruc- 
tion was made short by necessity, but it was effi- 
cient, and the principle of requiring every man to 
pass this test before receiving a commission is 
surely one we must never abandon. It must not 
be thought that all the officers who came from 
these camps entered them from civil life. A very 
large percentage entered from the ranks of the 
army. This is, of course, the right principle, and 



200 THE ARMY OF 1918 

would have been adopted from the beginning, if it 
had been possible. It only becomes possible in 
practice if every citizen has served in the ranks. 
We would have been lost if we had tried to officer 
our great armies in 1917 from the ranks of the 
Eegular army and the National Guard. 

I firmly believe that the National Guard should 
be continued. It is highly desirable that there 
should be other military organizations or another 
military organization from that adimnistered by 
the War Department. Everybody knows the 
blanket effect which the War Department always 
has put on all initiative. Let us by all means 
have military organizations where men of military 
talent can develop along free lines. The Eegular 
army should compel the National Guard to main- 
tain a certain standard, but should not prevent its 
rising above that standard. 

The National Guard comes out of the late war 
with a marvelous record and a clean slate. De- 
nounced for decades, not only by Regular army 
officers but by slackers as well, as an organization 
of tin. soldiers, it furnished the cadres which made 
the success of 1918 possible. The troops which 



ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 201 

the Eegular army, distracted by its manifold 
duties, could not furnish, the National Guard sup- 
plied. Their achievements, early recognized by 
both our allies, are now acclaimed by the com- 
mander-in-chief himself. The National Guard, 
however, was only a cadre which was not complete 
at the top nor at the bottom. It had to borrow 
most of its general officers, and this always will be 
so. The spare time which a civilian may give to 
military training can hardly fit him to hold gen- 
eral rank. Even a brilliant civilian is less fitted at 
the outset than a Eegular chosen in order of sen- 
iority. 

The National Guard did not furnish its entire 
quota of officers, needing replacements from the 
training camps, to which it furnished many pupils, 
and it also drew heavily upon the draft for its 
effectiveness. At the end of the war it stood with 
a long list of divisions and regiments only less 
effective than the 1st and 2nd divisions. It is now 
an organization in bebig, or, rather, a series of 
organizations in being. These organizations have 
developed among themselves, by experience under 
fire and by elimination, men competent to hold 



202 THE ARMY OF 1918 

very high command. It is entirely proper that 
they should receive commissions in these com- 
mands from their state governments and that 
these commisions should be honored by the Fed- 
eral government. We know from the experience 
of this war that if any National Guard officers 
prove incompetent to perform their duties, they 
will easily be removed. 

Eeserve officers should not be left in their pres- 
ent unorganized condition. Calling them out from 
time to time for a short period of instruction will 
not bring the best results. They should be en- 
cadred into regiments and organized in the sev- 
eral departments ready to receive their allotment 
of recruits or selected men in emergency. Nor 
should any limitation be placed upon the rank to 
which they may rise by suitable demonstration of 
efficiency. The Reserve corps will never be of any 
value to the Union if it is to be branded as an in- 
ferior organization. The young Regular officer 
who alluded to the U. S. R. on a Reserve officer's 
collar as his *^ badge of shame '* showed bad taste, 
but he phrased in Napoleonic language the regula- 
tion which rendered our Reserve corps unpopular. 



ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE S03 

Any idea that high command shall be confined 
to officers of the Regular army is not only repug- 
nant to American principles but also, as history 
shows, productive of inefficient generalship, and 
lastly will vitiate all attempts to obtain necessary 
military legislation. 

Superior advantages which come to the Eegular 
army officers to fit themselves for high command 
will result in bringing Regular army officers into 
most of the important positions. From the point 
of view of their own ambition they do not need 
any such written or unwritten law. As a success- 
ful general from the Regular army put it: *^If 
after twenty years of study I am not a better 
soldier than one of these new men, heaven knows, 
I want to get out of his way.'' 

The great success of the war was the draft. 
In the permanent establishment of this service 
lies our national security and the remedy of such 
military iUs as developed in our war. If every 
officer has to rise from the ranks, there can be no 
feeling of officer favoritism. If every citizen 
serves a period in the army, there will not be that 
lack of understanding between manufacturer and 



g04 THE ARMY OF 1918 

supply officer which acted so detrimentally. If 
every member of Congress has served in the army, 
there will be an end to the lamentable misconcep- 
tion about the army and military affairs which 
noW characterizes onr legislators. If every citizen 
is always liable to the call to war, young pacifists 
and old pacifists witli sons will not embark so 
lightly on the fallacies that cost us so heavily in 
wounded and dead. 

To be sure, universal service will not eradicate 
all faults or all mistakes, but it will end the great 
faults under which we have served. 

To provide our personnel, therefore, we should 
have universal training to start every citizen on 
the road to military efficiency and to give each 
one an equal opportunity to become a commis- 
sioned officer. The Eegular officers' corps chosen 
from those who apply for commissions will be the 
heart of our military system. The officers' reserve 
corps and the National Guard shall be auxiliaries. 

Let us undo at once our error of demobilization. 
Officers of the Regular army holding temporary 
commissions have had to vacate these temporary 
commissions entirely. Why entirely? Obviously, 



ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL DEFENSE 205 

a regular army of a few liiindred thousand men 
cannot support an officers' corps necessary for as 
many millions. But wliy should not an officer 
serving in the capacity in the Eegular army which 
the occasion demands still have a reserve rank or 
a war rank to which he will rise immediately on 
the outbreak of hostilities and without further 
action on the part of the authorities. Surely an 
officer who knows he will occupy a position of in- 
creased authority in the event of war will work 
to prepare for that position, will be familiar with 
it, and, unlike so many of the generals at the be- 
ginning of the late war, will not think as a major 
or a captain. 

This plan would also facilitate the recruiting 
of an officers' reserve corps. Now an officer who 
accepts a res^erve commission feels that he is 
accepting a rank beyond which he cannot be pro- 
moted and that if he is mobilized he will be con- 
stantly overslaughed by an unlimited number of 
Regular army officers who will be promoted not 
by selection because of efficiency but by seniority 
because of class feeling. The reserve officer 



206 THE ARMY OF 1918 

should know just where he will be at the outbreak 
of war and that, once the whole army is mobilized, 
all officers will be on the same Ust — will rise, stand 
still, or fall on their merits. 



CHAPTER X 

NEW WEAPONS AND THEIB USB 

Just as we should learn from our war experi- 
ence how to provide an army to defend us in the 
next great crisis, so must we find a true military 
doctrine for the use of the army. 

It is vital to resist the temptation to find in the 
experiences of the war corroboration of precon- 
ceived ideas. This will be especially hard among 
the officers of the Regular army because they have 
studied from pre-war text books and because a 
minority of them have had actual experience in 
combat. Just now too much stress is being laid 
upon the value of * draining for open warfare," 
and the emphasis on the importance of mobility 
as contrasted with force. It would be absurd 
to suggest that open warfare training should be 
abandoned or to minimize in the least degree the 
value of mobility. Furthermore, there is no 
danger of such a mistake being made in America. 

There is, however, a danger that men who have 

207 



THE ARMY OF 1918 

not participated in heavy combat will fail to ap- 
preciate that when troops, substantially equal in 
numbers, equipment and discipline, meet, there 
must result a grueling combat in which every re- 
source of materiel and technique must be em- 
ployed. 

I am frankly afraid that those officers who have 
not learned the intricate technique developed on 
the west front will prevent its being taught in 
American schools. Let us not forget that the 
armies which clashed in 1914 were all led by gen- 
erals educated up to the eyes in the school of 
mobility. And let us not forget that a month of 
inconclusive ^^open warfare^' ended with the op- 
posing armies completely demobilized in the face 
of each other. For years thereafter neither side 
was able to use enough fokce to break the other's 
lines. When finally the Germans found the means 
to break our lines, these were in every case re- 
stored and at less expenditure of energy than had 
been used in breaking them. 

The campaign of the fall of 1918 is no criterion 
for a campaign between equals. The Germans 
were inferior in men and in munitions. They were 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE 209 

deserted by their allies. The country behind them 
was breaking into revolution. 

In our teachings of mobility let us appreciate 
that we move only to concentrate fokce. Let us be 
prepared to exercise this fokce to the fullest effi- 
ciency, and let us appreciate that ^'open warfare" 
can only be used in advance guard actions and in 
the pursuit. 

When main bodies come into contact, methods 
wrongly called those of ^'trench warfare'' must 
be used, as was shown in the transition from the 
second to the third period of the battle of the Ar- 
gonne. 

To attack successfully an enemy who is organ- 
ized to defend himself it is necessary to concen- 
trate a superiority of artillery which by carefully 
regulated fire and well defined objects will neu- 
tralize his barrage batteries and will put out of 
service the greater part of his organized strong 
points. The infantry concentrated in superior 
numbers for the assault can, by use of its proper 
weapons, overcome the defense of hostile infantry 
and artillery which has been shattered by our ar- 
tillery preparation, or it can attack with reason- 



210 THE ARMY OF 1918 

able success enemy rear guards ; but for infantry 
to attack an organized enemy, equipped with ma- 
cbine guns and protected by wire and a barrage 
and not greatly shaken by our preparatory fire, 
has been proven suicidal by the experience of all 
combatants in this war. The fact that tanks are 
of great assistance in attack and that surprise is 
still possible and of great value does not detract 
from these established principles. 

It is imperative that artillery be handled as 
artillery and not as though it were trench mortars 
or infantry cannon. Bringing artillery into the 
assaulting line adds nothing to the attack, while it 
deprives it of the invaluable support of guns 
properly handled. 

Artillery fire, to be effective, must be concen- 
trated. The long range of modern guns permits 
concentration not only to a point far beyond that 
which heretofore was possible but to the point of 
annihilation. To attain this irresistible use of 
artillery perfect liaison between infantry and 
artillery is essential. This liaison can be accom- 
plished only in divisions trained and exercised in 
the combined use of arms. 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE 211 

Due to the lack of divisional artillery and the 
consequent lack of support to some infantry divi- 
sions, and because of the ignorance of many gen- 
eral officers in the use of artillery, there has grown 
up a school of infantry officers who believe that 
cannon should be attached to small infantry units 
to move with them and fire on the restricted front 
of the unit to which they are attached. This is an 
error of the first magnitude. 

The correct employment of artillery is simple 
and self-evident, but it seems as much of a mystery 
to some intelligent men as music or painting is to 
others. 

At the time of Francis I. the Chevalier Bayard 
is quoted as advocating the concentration of artil- 
lery fire; and a chronicle of the time of Joan of 
Arc remarks the amazement of a lieutenant-gen- 
eral that Joan knew by instinct how to concentrate 
the fire of artillery as well as he could have done 
it. Yet war after war has been fought and this 
simple principle has been utterly ignored by men 
of lifelong service in the army. 

In justice to our army let it be recorded that 
prior to the war neither the French nor the Ger- 



212 THE ARMY OF 1918 

mans had thoroughly mastered the use of the 
combined arms under modern conditions. The 
technique of the first was, to be sure, nearly per- 
fect in accuracy of aim and in concentration of 
fire. They themselves admit, however, there was a 
lack of cooperation between the artillery and the 
infantry in the early stages of the war. The Ger- 
mans understood both the concentration of 
artillery fire and the use of the combined arms; 
but they fell into the error of exaggerating the 
value of moving the guns, and from this mistake 
they never entirely recovered. Soldiers should 
know that the moving of cannon is a defensive 
operation and that the offensive operation of can- 
non, within their range, lies in moving their fire. 

Of course, the four developments of this war 
which most profoundly have affected its present 
and future conduct are : Airplanes, mustard gas, 
tanks and automobile trucks. 

Of these, airplanes have practically monopolized 
public attention. It has even been suggested in 
the American Congress that the next war will be 
won in the air. This is a threefold misapprehen- 
sion due to the natural appeal the airplane makes 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE 213 

to the imagination, to the propaganda carried on 
by inefficient and dishonest aircraft production au- 
thorities, and to its spectacular attacks on civil 
populations, timid and easily panic stricken. 

The airplane undoubtedly is effective in attack- 
ing towns behind the lines. The German air raids 
obtained results greatly incommensurate with any 
material damage done. Bombing factory towns at 
night robbed the workers of sleep, shook their 
nerves, and detracted from their capacity to turn 
out munitions. The effect of air raids in this 
direction, however, shrinks to insignificance when 
compared with General Scott's bombardment of 
the civil population of Vera Cruz with heavy ar- 
tillery in 1847. The Germans made a practice of 
bombing factory cities as far as their means would 
permit, but it cannot be said that all their efforts 
had any appreciable effect upon the final outcome 
of the war. 

On the other hand, the allied blockade produced 
a condition of near famine in Germany in 1918 
and was largely instrumental in breaking down 
Teutonic morale. This reached its lowest ebb in 
the summer and fall of 1918, when the hard 



214 THE ARMY OF 1918 

pressed army in the field had need of every pos- 
sible support from home, but received discourage- 
ment instead. The blockade, therefore, remains 
supreme as the most eifective and the most cruel 
weapon to use against the enemy ^s civil popula- 
tion. 

From the point of view of military attack air- 
plane bombing is not effective. If the bomber flies 
by night to avoid detection from the ground, he 
has great difficulty in seeing the target. If he 
comes low enough to see and hit the target, he 
becomes visible and vulnerable. If an airplane 
attacks back areas in daytime, it must fly so high 
in rarefied atmosphere to avoid the anti-aircraft 
guns that it is not able to carry a large quantity 
of bombs, and it must launch these without pos- 
sibility of aim. As a weapon of destruction the 
airplane cannot compete with the artillery in 
accuracy or in volume of fire. 

The principle that **one gun on shore is worth 
two guns at sea'' has remained true at every de- 
velopment of the battleship, and the same probably 
will be true of the airplane. Ground gives con- 
cealment, protection, and the opportunity to use 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE ^15 

the biggest gun. The ship and the airplane may 
choose the time and range of attack, but these 
will not offset the greater advantage of fighting 
from the ground. 

In attacking troops the airplane, armed with 
machine guns, has proven more effective. It is 
exaggeration to say that any value comes from 
dashing at a battery in position or upon troops in 
trenches, because these usually find protection. 
But when the roads are congested by columns of 
infantry leaded down with equipment, and by ar- 
tillery and transport tired and not vigilant against 
air attacks, airplanes with machine guns have in- 
flicted considerable losses; and by scattering or- 
ganizations and blocking roads have materially 
delayed movements of troops. For this purpose, 
therefore, airplanes will be used more extensively 
in future. 

On the other hand, it should not be forgotten 
that the development of aviation advanced much 
more rapidly than did the science of anti-aircraft 
counter-offensive. Undoubtedly instruments will 
be invented to improve the fire upon airplanes at 
great heights, and gunners will be better trained 



216 THE ARMY OF 1918 

to combat airplanes flying low to attack troops. 
For the latter we have only to devise a simple 
weapon and put it in the hands of experienced 
wing shots. The red tape of the War Department 
prevented the use of this simple expedient in Eu- 
rope, although frequently advocated; and yet, in 
several cases, infantrymen, relying only upon 
their sense of an object moving in the air, and 
using either the service rifle or the French auto- 
matic rifle, succeeded in bringing down enemy 
planes. 

The great use of aviation, of course, will be to 
obtain information. Airplanes now can fly many 
hundreds of miles without alighting. They can, 
therefore, patrol the enemy's rear for a distance 
that it will take troops several days to cover, even 
while marching at the most rapid speed. On clear 
days they can easily detect all movements in force 
on the railroads or roads, and on clear and espe- 
cially on moonlit nights should gather a great deal 
of information. The value of airplane reconnais- 
sance in this war became the greater because of 
the almost solid line between Switzerland and the 
sea, which made the work of ground patrols and 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE 217 

spies much more difficult. Airplanes not only 
acted as patrols but carried spies by night and 
left them in enemy country to send back reports 
by carrier pigeon, by contact with other spies, 
and by returning in an airplane with which an 
appointment had been made. 

In this way airplanes make the problem of the 
commander contemplating an attack much more 
difficult. That they do not make it impossible has 
been shown by the concentrations of troops and 
surprise attacks which characterized the year 
1918. Four instances will confirm this — ^in the 
early spring of that year the British, with a large 
preponderance in the air, were unable to learn of 
the German concentration against their 5th army ; 
on the 18th of July, the Grermans, with a superior- 
ity in the air, were not aware of the concentration 
of the Franco- American corps in the forest of 
Villers-Cotterets ; in April, 1917, the information 
which the Germans got of the proposed French 
attack was obtained by a trench raid ; and on July 
15th, 1918, the vital information which General 
Gouraud received of the very hour that the Ger- 



«18 THE ARMY OF 1918 

man general attack was to start was obtained by 
an old-fashioned patrol of only four men. 

I feel, however, that the intelligence depart- 
ments of all armies signally failed to take full ad- 
vantage of the possibilities of gaining informa- 
tion by airplane. 

In addition to its long range patrolling, the air- 
plane is valuable in obtaining news of enemy 
movements near the front during battle and the 
movements of its own advancing troops. Making 
photographs which reveal the positions of enemy 
batteries, strong points and trenches is perhaps 
the most important service of the airplane, since 
it is impossible to break an enemy line without ac- 
curately bombarding his defensive organization. 
Having located the enemy's defenses, the airplane 
also offers great service in regulating the fire of 
the destroying artillery. 

Great as the value of the airplane unquestion- 
ably is for locating and directing fire upon enemy 
organizations, it is not indispensable. Many ex- 
pedients have been devised for detecting enemy 
positions from the ground and for directing fire 
upon them. 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE jei9 

The American artillery became especially profi- 
cient in this because it had to fight almost with- 
out aviation through the greater part of the time 
it was in the war. On the contrary, the British 
were superior to their enemy in the air throughout 
most of the struggle, but did not get the full benefit 
of this superiority because their artillery never 
reached the technical development which the 
Americans learned from the French. It seems 
well to point out that in the development of our 
aviation to the utmost we should not neglect fully 
to develop all the ground methods of countering 
the enemy's aviation. 

Airplanes and balloons again give commanding 
officers the opportunity to make personal observa- 
tions and to inspire the men with their presence. 

It was Napoleon's constant endeavor to occupy 
a position on the battlefield where he could view 
all maneuvers and could direct tactical movements 
in person. His corps and division commanders 
personally commanded their compact masses and 
inspired them by example of individual courage. 

The increasing size of armies and of the range 
and destruotiveness of weapons had led to such 



220 THE ARMY OF 1918 

great extensions of fronts and such depths and 
openness of formations, such necessity for con- 
cealment from sight even before the great war as 
to make individual observation by the commander 
on the one hand and example on the other no 
longer possible. Coincidentally, the development 
of the telephone made possible the transmission 
of orders over long distances. 

These causes led to the exercise of command 
from a conmaand post, selected because of its ac- 
cessibility to lines of communication from all 
points, and generally placed immediately in rear 
of the center of the command. Here the com- 
mander receives information from the front and 
orders from the rear and from it regulates' the 
movements of his troops. If he leaves his posi- 
tion for the front, he can obtain only a small part 
of the information necessary to form his judg- 
ments and can inspire only an infinitesimal per- 
centage of his men, while all efforts made in these 
directions necessitate his turning over the com- 
mand of his troops to his subordinate for a con- 
siderable period of time, perhaps during the time 
when his presence is most needed. 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE 221 

By using an airplane a division commander can 
make frequent and rapid surveys of the condition 
at his front, size up the situation at the vital spot 
and intervene with a decisiveness which is not 
possible when dependent upon varying and con- 
flicting reports from subordinates. At the same 
time by use of special insignia on the plane the 
commander can make his presence known and 
thereby encourage his troops. 

It seems strange that this use of the airplane 
was not adopted in the war. The reason probably 
lies in the high average age of commanders dis- 
posing of airplanes and to the hostility which the 
great number of mediocre generals would feel 
towards a" dashing individual who would thus dis- 
tinguish himself. In all services brilliancy was 
frowned upon by the oligarchies of old fogies 
which retained their palsied influence throughout 
the conflict. 

Among the Germans, artillery commanders 
were required to study the enemy's terrain by 
aerial observation over his lines, but this was for- 
bidden in the American army. Of course, the Ger- 
mans were right and we were wrong. We also 



9.%% THE ARMY OF 1918 

were wrong in not allowing our artillery com- 
manders a personal use of balloons. The balloon 
is the proper station for an artillery group com- 
mander when his group is in action. He will do 
better work by the use of his own eyes than he 
will by using reports of a balloon observer. Fur- 
thermore, he can be held entirely responsible for 
the conduct of his fire and cannot pass the blame 
of failure to an officer in another branch of the 
service. 

It is hard to fix the blame for the failure to al- 
low our artillery commanders personally to take 
the air. Undoubtedly the higher officers of the 
air service intrigued to keep officers of other serv- 
ice from flying in order to magnify the branch of 
the service over which they presided. The gen- 
eral staff also discouraged the development of 
initiative on the part of line officers. Perhaps 
there was also a lack of insistence on the part of 
the artillery officers to obtain personal use of the 
balloons and airplanes. 

It must become a part of our doctrine that in 
the air, as it has always been on the ground, the 
responsible commanders shall make their own re- 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE 223 

connaissances wherever possible and not delegate 
this dangerous but indispensable work. 

While fully comprehending the great value of 
the air service, we must not forget that in the 
actual battle poison gas and tanks are much more 
effective. Aided by yperite gas, surprise was the 
great factor in) the German victories of 1918. 
Aided by tanks, surprise was the element of allied 
success in the same year. 

The enormous value of surprise, long recog- 
nized in the literature of war, had been largely 
counteracted on the western front by the strong 
defensive organizations that demanded such a long 
artillery preparation to destroy them as to inform 
the enemy of the assailant's purpose. The great 
offensive power of gas and tanks reintroduced the 
opportunity for surprise. 

The great difference between bullets or ex- 
plosive shells on the one hand and gas on the 
other is that the action of the former is in- 
stantaneous, while the latter retains its deadly ef- 
fect for varying periods. If the bullet or shell 
fragment does not strike its intended target, it is 
harmless. 



224 THE ARMY OF 1918 

The most effective of all gases used in tlie war 
was yperite, which poisoned the neighborhood of 
its release for hours and even days. Yperite, a 
liquid of severe caustic properties, penetrates the 
thickest clothing and inflicts terrible burns upon 
the body. Evaporated, it becomes a deadly gas, 
invisible and nearly odorless. Upon one occasion 
a division marched in the rain through dripping 
woods which previously had been subjected to 
yperite. Nearly all of the men had to be taken to 
the rear, writhing in agony. In many instances 
men have been fatally gassed without even know- 
ing they had been subject to its effects. Because 
of its deadly efficiency gas has, further, a moral 
effect. Troops become inured to high explosive 
shell and rifle fire, but the longer they are ac- 
quainted with the effects of gas, the more they 
dread it. 

The Germans, on March 21st, 1918, made the 
fullest use of gas in their attack on the British. 
First, batteries were silenced and, once splashed 
with the liquid yperite, they could not be used 
again for a long time. Next, the German guns 
were turned upon strong points and the garrisons 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE 225 

were subjected to the effects of yperite gas. A 
part of each garrison was put out of action by 
bums and the remainder greatly weakened from 
having to wear gas masks for several hours. 

Having disposed of counter-batteries and of 
known strong points, the whole German artillery 
was able to fire the rolling barrage before its own 
troops. It would not be wide of the truth to say 
that the use of the yperite gas had increased three- 
fold the efficiency of the German artillery. 

American troops suffered the same disadvantage 
from the lack of gas shells that they suffered from 
the shortage of airplanes. Sentimentalists whose 
activities undoubtedly were guided by German 
agents delayed the manufacture of gas for use 
against the Germans while fellow countrymen 
were scalded and choked to death by this modern 
and terribly effective weapon. 

The tank, like every other weapon in this war 
excepting gas, is an American invention, neglected 
in its home country and developed abroad. The 
tank, in principle, is the body of an armored car 
superimposed upon the American farm tractor. 
It is strange that those countries which en- 



226 THE ARMY OF 1918 

deavored to be militarily efficient in times of peace 
had not already hit upon the tank. They all de- 
veloped the armored automobile and used it ex- 
tensively along the roads during the war of move- 
ment. When the front became stabilized, the 
roads immediately in the rear became impassable 
and the armored automobiles could not be used. 
It has not yet been determined who first thought 
of using the American endless belt tractor on the 
battle field. 

Originally, the tank's principal value was be- 
lieved to lie in the facility with which it out barbed 
wire. Prior to the development of the tank the 
wire was cut by artillery fire, by long tubes filled 
with high explosives and placed beneath the en- 
tanglements, and by infantry under protection of 
a barrage. All of these methods were effective 
in trench raids, but not satisfactory in large move- 
ments. At Cambrai the British tanks opened ave- 
nues through the wire defenses in a manner that 
revolutionized the principles of attack. Tanks 
also proved of great value in attacking machine 
guns, the tank's weapon and crew having an ad- 
vantage over the infantry machine gun crew in 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE 227 

the open or even in a pill box. The tank's weak- 
ness lies in its absolute vulnerability to a direct 
hit from a cannon. From this it seeks security 
in surprise, in rapidity of movement, and, most of 
all, by operating in misty weather. The mist which 
makes the airplane powerless brings the tank into 
its kingdom. Therefore, as the reconnaissance 
airplane is the greatest assistance to the defense 
and the tank is the greatest weapon in the assault, 
misty weather will favor the attack more than 
ever. A general lesson should be drawn from this 
coincidence — in misty countries the offensive will 
be more successful than in regions blest with a 
clear climate. 

Tanks constructed for that purpose also have 
been used to carry field pieces across shell-torn 
ground and to bring up water and munitions. 
Large tanks have been used, especially by the 
British, to carry infantry across open ground and 
establish them in woods and other defiladed areas. 

The tractor, which has been adopted for the 
American artillery, is a tank in every respect 
except that the drivers have no protection and 
no weapon. If our ordnance department ever 



228 THE ARMY OF 1918 

stops its policy of opposing improvement, protec- 
tion will be given to the drivers v/hich will make 
them immune from shrapnel fire and greatly in- 
crease the mobility of our artillery. 

The word 'Hank*' was adopted to make the Ger- 
mans think that these new machines had no other 
object than the carrying of water to the front. It 
is unfortunate that the word was appropriated at 
all. It ought to be expunged from our military 
vocabulary and the word 'Hractor'' substituted. 
We will develop the many uses to which the tractor 
is adaptable in warfare much more freely than 
if we hypnotize ourselves with the word *Hank," 
which, in the public mind, and to a great extent 
in the military mind, limits the tractor mechanism 
to a definite style of machine. 

If aviation has received too large a portion of 
public attention, the automobile truck has been 
practically neglected, and yet this machine saved 
the war for the allies. 

The French railroads were vastly inferior to 
the German, and although the French had the ad- 
vantage of fighting in their own country and using 
their own railroad lines, while the Germans had to 



NEW WEAPONS AND THEIR USE ^9 

fight in foreign countries and connect their rail- 
road lines with the captured lines, rebuilding 
temporarily many dynamited bridges, the latter 
still gave their armies a service immeasurably 
superior to the French railroad service. The 
French were the first to fall back on the use of 
automobile trucks, turned out by their factories 
in great quantity and of splendid quality. 

One of the considerations governing the Ger- 
man attack on Verdun in 1916 was that the as- 
sailants could easily renew their supplies by rail 
while the French had only one railroad line to the 
city, and this under long range shell fire. It was 
a distinct military surprise to the Germans to find 
the French were able to supply the army defend- 
ing Verdun by an enormous and efficient system 
of auto truck transportation. 

When the Germans broke the British line in 
March, 1918, the greater part of the French re- 
serves were moved to the battle front in auto 
trucks; and when the Germans broke the line on 
the Chemin des Dames in May, the American 2nd 
division was moved across France in auto trucks 
from its position in support of the 1st and jarrived 



230 THE ARMY OF 1918 

in time to block the road to Paris. One of Luden- 
dorff ^s laments is that the German factories could 
not turn out auto trucks in numbers necessary to 
offset the allies' advantage. 

The airplane in reconnaissance, the tank in as- 
sault, and the auto truck in mobility have sadly in- 
vaded the province of cavalry. One well may 
wonder what lies before the beau sahreur. The 
answer, perhaps, is found in the words of the 
chagrined mechanic who, given a team of artillery 
horses to drive, contemptuously referred to them 
as * ^ hay burners. ' ' The fight is between the horse 
and the machine and it will be determined by the 
economic conditions of warfare. Where horse 
feed is abundant and fuel scarce the cavalry horse, 
the artillery horse and the army mule will remain. 
Elsewhere, they will be driven out by the machine. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE GENERAL STAFF 

The subject of the General Staff is one mention 
of which, is the occasion for great controversy. 
While its ihdispensability is acknowledged, its un- 
popularity is great in every country. 

One hundred years ago Clausewitz, when writ- 
ing on war, could not restrain himself from mak- 
ing contemptuous allusions to staff officers. The 
French called their genera^ staff ;ofificers ^^en- 
dentCj ' ' meaning * ^ dressed in lace. ' ' The English 
viewpoint is shown by the scale of awards the 
German officers were supposed to employ in re- 
warding their sharpshooters for killing British 
officers : * ' Ten marks for a captain, twenty marks 
for a major, one hundred marks for a colonel, and 
thirty days in jail for shooting a British staff 
officer ! ' ' In our own army the general staff was 
frequently referred to as the ** general stuff,'' and 
when its officers went to the front they were some- 

231 



232 THE ARMY OF 1918 

times told that a star could now be put in the serv- 
ice flag of their particular general staff. 

This unpopularity of this minority of the army 
with the majority, and the great unpopularity of 
the Washington general staff with the members 
of Congress, make the development of a proper 
general staff system a difficult matter. At the 
same time a general staff is essential to an efficient 
army. 

Every army has long been divided into three 
fundamental sections called arms, or branches, of 
the service. They are infantry, artillery, and 
cavalry. To assist these in their work are sup- 
plementary services called engineers and signal 
troops, supply trains, hospital troops and a mili- 
tary legal department. Each is separate and dis- 
tinct, and its personnel devotes itself to its 
particular branch of the service. 

Management of the whole rests in the general 
or generals. In the case of a small army, say one 
regiment of infantry, one battery of artillery, one 
troop of cavalry, with a handful of specialists in 
other departments, one general can do this work 
with such assistants as he can pick up from the 



THE GENERAL STAFF 233 

differ ent branches or from civil life. As armies 
increase in size the complexity of their administra- 
tion and command increases, and larger and more 
thoroughly organized staffs become necessary. 

While armies exist for use in the field they must, 
in their nature, have an administration at a central 
point ; this administration procures their weapons, 
clothing and supplies. 

In early days this was largely done by con- 
tractors. The abuses and weaknesses of the con- 
tractor system led to the development of bureaus. 
The collapse everywhere of the bureau system 
caused the duties of the bureaus to be turned over 
to the General Staff ; that is, everywhere except in 
America, where the bureau system persisted, in 
spite of a long series of failures, up to this war, 
where it once more left its hecatombs. 

The principal bureaus of our War Department 
are the Adjutant-General, whose duty is to issue 
the order to the Commander; the Ordnance De- 
partment, whose function is to procure arms and 
fighting equipment; and the Quartermaster's De- 
partment, whose province is to furnish clothing 
and supplies. The spheres of the Ordnance and 



234 THE ARMY OF 1918 

the Quartermaster's Departments have become 
overlapped in an exceedingly ludicrous manner. 

It is necessary to dwell for a moment on the 
total failure of our bureaus in this war because 
of the vigorous efforts now being put forth by 
them and their political supporters in Washington 
to preserve them so they may repeat in a future 
conflict the horrors they achieved in this. 

Our Ordnance and our Quartermaster's bureaus 
really were worse than useless. Better for the 
army had they never existed. Not only did they 
do no good, but they stood resolutely in the path 
of every effort toward accomplishment. 

The Ordnance Department had not provided for 
the war a single weapon of first class. Our 3-inch 
field piece was badly sighted ; our howitzers were 
of such feeble range that if brought into action 
against modern artillery they would have ap- 
peared like the jingalls of the Chinese against 
the modern artillery of the Japanese in 1895. The 
machine gun was invented by an American, but 
the Ordnance Department refused to provide them 
either in number or quality. When the American, 
Colonel Lewis, invented a greatly improved ma- 



THE GENERAL STAFF 235 

chine gun and offered it to this country gratis, 
criminal jealousy on the part of the Ordnance offi- 
cers induced its refusal, and this refusal was con- 
tinued long after the outbreak of the present war 
and even after our entrance into it. Rather than 
let American troops fight with a Lewis gun, our 
envious Ordnance Department preferred they go 
to battle unarmed. The confessed pretext for this 
criminality was that the Ordnance Department 
was developing a better gun. At the end of the 
war an excellent weapon was produced, whether 
better or worse than the Lewis is a matter of 
opinion; but this gun was not available while 
American lives were being sacrificed on the battle- 
field. 

No less criminal was the conduct of this depart- 
ment in regard to artillery. When Joifre came to 
America in the spring of 1917 he brought the com- 
plete plans for the French 75, the great weapon 
invented by the French in 1896, and which, at the 
close of the war, was still the premier field piece. 
Not only was this by far the best field piece in 
existence, but the French, by long practice, had 
developed methods of handling it which would 



236 THE ARMY OF 1918 

require a long period of experimentation with 
any new weapon to learn to imitate. These 
plans were turned over to our Ordnance Depart- 
ment just as we were about to enter the war with 
practically no artillery, and such as we had of in- 
ferior quality and nearly worn out. The Ordnance 
Department spent a year trying for its oivn glory 
to develop improvements on the *'75.'' Mean- 
time, American divisions remained nmequipped. 
Instruction was delayed. If, sometimes, our 
barrages were misplaced, if the artillery did not 
protect the infantry, if our shells fell in the ranks 
of our own men, the chief blame lies at the door 
of these murderous egoists. 

If our Ordnance Department was vicious, our 
Quartermaster's Department was ridiculous. 
The Quartermaster's Department purchased 
clothes for the army and also perpetrated the 
design. The result attained by these sleek clerks 
has offended the eye of Europe and America and 
spoiled the temper of every American soldier. Our 
infantry was dressed in riding breeches, and all 
soldiers were given a legging cumbersome to put 
on, fragile in construction, and unsightly in ap- 



THE GENERAL STAFF 237 

pearance. Our shoe was well shaped, having been 
designed by a doctor, but of such flimsy construc- 
tion that it could not survive a single day's hard 
marching. To save some few cents per thousand, 
all pockets were reduced to a minimum size, and 
this for men who had to carry upon their person 
not only such comforts as they wished but all their 
necessities. The Quartermaster's Department, 
besides, had evolved a system of transacting busi- 
ness that would amaze a Chinese custom house 
collector. Its end was not to transact business, 
but, incident to the transaction of business, to per- 
form a series of extraordinary acrobatics on 
paper. 

In consequence, the troops in Europe suffered 
hardships until a purchasing department was 
organized which was compelled to procure more 
than half the supplies needed by the army. 

Soldiers, lacking in military qualities, uncom- 
fortable in the field, unsuccessful in the command 
of men, unrespected by their fighting associates, 
naturally drift into the swivel chairs of the bu- 
reaus, there to find themselves the masters of 



238 THE ARMY OF 1918 

the fighting; men, with the tragic and comic results 
already outlined. 

Stark necessity had driven the armies of Eu- 
rope into better organization, but no such neces- 
sity had knocked at the doors of our War Depart- 
ment. Our bureaus had become allied with the 
political machine. Business firms dealt with the 
army through the Ordnance and Quartermaster's 
Departments. Also, they lent aid at election 
times. Officers and men dealt with the Adjutant 
General, and political favors for people with in- 
fluence could be negotiated through this office. 

Elihu Boot, while Secretary of State, and 
'Leonard Wood, while Chief of Staff, fought vigor- 
ously to eradicate these evils, but their efforts 
were only partially successful; and with the end 
of the latter 's detail, politics increased its sway 
over the military fate of the millions destined to 
go forth to fight. 

The theory upon which these administrative 
duties should be turned over to the General Staff 
is that the General Staff is composed of fighting 
men, not of slackers and clerks. These fighting 
men, being up to date in military developments, 



THE GENERAL STAFF 239 

will demand up-to-date equipment, and, themselves 
subject to the hardships and dangers of war, will 
be loath to subordinate military efficiency to 
political expediency, a condition which has not 
existed in the staff departments. 

The General Staff, then, fundamentally an or- 
ganization drawn from the fighting services, is 
charged with the administration and equipment of 
the army, in peace as well as in war, and with the 
conduct of all affairs which involve more than 
.one arm of the service. These include (1) obtain- 
ing information about the enemy, (2) planning 
movements of troops of different arms by rail or 
by road or by water, (3) plans of battle for the 
combined arms, (4) producing and delivering sup- 
plies, and (5) training. 

This, of course, makes the General Staff su- 
perior to any of the arms of the service, and it has 
led to constant usurpation of power, a usurpation 
which has come the more easily because of another 
consideration. 

The promotion of able officers seems to become 
more difficult as armies become more regularized. 
More and more high rank goes to men who have 



240 THE ARMY OF 1918 

passed the age of greater efficiency and have really- 
entered upon or advanced far down life's decline. 
This fanlt has been recognized without being cor- 
rected. Rather than assault the obstacle boldly, 
military practice has been to circumvent it by 
vesting in young staff officers of lower rank pow- 
ers which properly belong to the superior gen- 
erals. 

For example, a General Staff officer, acting in 
the name of his commander, can give orders to 
officers who far outrank him. The operations offi- 
cer of a division, who may be a Lieutenant-Colonel 
or a Major, may himself direct a Brigadier-Gren- 
eral what to do ; and likewise, any one of the chiefs 
of the General Staff sections of the great General 
Staff may issue orders to Army Commanders. A 
Brigadier General may designate in detail the 
work to be performed by the troops under the di- 
rect command of a Lieutenant-General. 

The General Staff becomes a kind of a superior 
officers' corps, standing in relation to the line offi- 
cers somewhat as line officers stand to non-com- 
missioned officers. 

It has been found necessary to put staff officers 



THE GENERAL STAFF 241 

through a course of instruction and to require 
them to pass an examination. They are then as- 
signed to the General StafP by an order of the 
War Department, and are sent to duty with their 
respective commands by order of the War De- 
partment or the Commander-in-Chief. Thus, a 
Division General may not select his staff officers. 
If a difference arises between him and his staif he 
has a personal appeal to his Corps Commander, 
but the staff officer has an independent line of com- 
munication to staff officers at Great Headquar- 
ters, which dominates the Corps Commander. As 
the detail of all administration is handled by the 
•General Staff, the subordinate of the General 
Staff is really closer to the fountain head of 
authority than his commander. This is a fault and 
a grave one, and one which must be remedied. 

Staff officers do not personally engage in oper- 
ations, whether maneuvers or combats. Informa- 
tion of the actual working of the plans they formu- 
late comes to them second-hand. Their perception 
is limited by the ability of combat officers to ex- 
plain and their own capacity to comprehend. 
Therefore, anything like permanency in staff as- 



^42 THE ARMY OF 1918 

sigmnent is certain to breed misconception in 
high quarters and unskillful, badly drawn orders. 
Another fault of the General Staff system is one 
of morale. Before the days of the General Staff 
the path to the rear was entirely too well beaten. 
Many were they who left the combatant branches, 
recognized as the services of honor, for the ad- 
ministrative branches, which soldiers held in slight 
esteem. With greater power and greater prestige 
attached to the place of comfort and immunity 
from danger on the General Staff, how shall we be 
able to keep able and forceful men at the front, 
where, after all, the enemy has to be met and over- 
thrown? 

Finally, that conception of the General Staff 
which was developed in Germany, and which all 
the Allied Staffs showed tendencies to emulate, 
must be annihilated; namely, that in time of war 
the General Staff becomes the government of the 
country, an irresponsible government, and one 
possessing powers of tyranny which it has taken 
generations to drive out of our civil system. If 
a military clique comes to possess complete power 
to dictate who shall and who shall not enter the 



THE GENERAL STAFF 243 

army, to decide where mobilized men shall serve, 
to say what industries shall be commandeered for 
military purposes, and shall be able to regulate the 
right to travel, to conduct a military secret serv- 
ice, to have the power of imprisonment, and be 
permitted, as was proposed by President Wilson, 
to gag the press, how great becomes the jeopardy 
of our liberties ! 

The solution of the General Staff problem is 
virtually the solution of every other military prob- 
lem — universal service of all young men while 
they are young. With universal service will come 
national and individual understanding of military 
necessities and the limitation of military author- 
ity. The nation will not, as its civil authorities 
found it necessary to do in 1917, turn over the con- 
duct of the war to men as unknown to the nation 
as the nation is unknown to them, with knowledge 
of war too little known to both. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE CKIME OF SILENCE 

That censorship is unavoidably vicious is a 
truth it has taken history to develop, and this was 
understood before the war only by free peoples. 
In Russia, as in oriental countries, censorship was 
employed as one of the most efficient instruments 
of tyranny. In Germany, also, truth and forward 
movements were combated by a censorship which, 
while it could not be made complete, was none the 
less efficiently exercised. The long struggle for 
freedom in England and her colonies is too well 
known to require even a summary here. One hun- 
dred and fifty years ago the conviction of our peo- 
ple expressed itself in the constitutional provi- 
sion for the freedom of the press. 

The principle of the freedom of the press was 
established in England contemporaneously with 
the supremacy of parliament over the king. It 
first came into relationship with the military ui 
the Crimean war, when Mr. Russell, correspondent 

244 



THE CRIME OF SILENCE 245 

of the London Times, exposed the frightful dis- 
organization of the British army in that campaign. 
From that day to the great war it exercised a wide 
influence upon military affairs. That its influence 
has not been wholly beneficial is certain, but its 
faults have been magnified and its benefits largely 
forgotten. 

The savage description of the Union rout at the 
first battle of ^'Bull Eun'Vby Mr. Eussell of 
Crimean fame, since dubbed *^Bull Run'' Russell, 
was as unpopular among the American people as 
it was in the army, but it was the greatest single 
factor in awakening the north to its real military 
shortcomings. The press also is to be credited in 
large measure for the removal of McClellan and 
Burnside and for the popularity of Grant, which, 
if it did not alone enable him to rise to the rank 
of commander-in-chief, upheld him during his 
well-conceived and hard-fought campaign that 
ended the rebellion. 

Professional, even more than public, opinion 
forgets benefits and exaggerates shortcomings. 
Military men added their resentment to a just 
criticism by a too free press of real faults in the 



246 THE ARMY OF 1918 

military zone, and became unanimous in their op- 
position to it. Chief among free people in their 
opposition to the press were the French ofi&cers 
who, smarting under th^r fully earned defeat in 
1870, endeavored to conceal the faultiness of their 
maneuvers under the camouflage that the news- 
papers exposed their plans to the enemy. The 
French, therefore, absolutely excluded newspaper 
correspondents from their armies. 

The English army also objected to journalistic 
criticisms and to their professional hostility added 
class antagonism, the officers being from the 
aristocracy and *^ pressmen'' from the middle and 
lower classes! Furthermore, the British army, 
as an organization, was exceedingly hostile to the 
^* Liberal" government and determined to fight 
the war without interference from it. 

The allied armies on the western front organ- 
ized press bureaus. These not only prevented the 
publication of news valuable to the enemy but pre- 
vented the allied peoples from getting informa- 
tion, already possessed by the enemy, which would 
tend to reflect upon the skill of the allied com- 
manders. These commanders insisted upon the 



THE CRIME OF SILENCE 247 

publication of false reports of military operations, 
and as the press bureaus fell into the hands of 
sycophantic individuals they gave great space to 
grandiose letters and salutations between high 
ranking officers that would more naturally have 
emanated from the half savage leaders of the 
middle ages than from the educated gentlemen 
thus led from common sense by the exercise of an 
arbitrary power which no authority, civil, relig- 
ious or military, has ever been able to exercise 
with moderation. 

It was largely due to this antagonism to the 
press that our allies were beaten nations when 
we came into the war. 

The French people had entirely lost confidence 
in its government and in its army. It knew that 
both had lied about the offensive of General 
Nivelle in 1917. Public opinion was near collapse, 
and even revolt, when America's unexpected entry 
saved the situation. 

The English, while not having suffered such 
heavy losses, because of their smaller participa- 
tion in the war on land, had yet suffered fright- 
fully. The making of munitions was delayed be- 



248 THE ARMY OF 1918 

cause their need had been concealed to protect the 
reputations of incompetents in office. The raising 
of necessary troops was postponed because a pub- 
lic explanation of their need meant exposing a 
lack of military success that would have 
diminished the reputations of high ranking offi- 
cers which were built on the reports of military 
press agents. The weeding out of incompetents, 
a practice indispensable in the making of a vic- 
torious army, was prevented, as it was intended to 
be prevented, by concealing the shortcomings of 
officers who were to bring catastrophe later. 
It was to a country where the military exercised 
such dictatorship that our General Staff, unaccus- 
tomed to arbitrary authority, came in 1917. The 
officers were taught how the allied generals made 
war without interference from civil governments, 
and even without unpleasant criticism for such 
errors, great or small, of mind or of heart, as 
they should commit. In unfamiliar surroundings 
and* subject to foreign and aristocratic influence, 
they adopted a censorship which made them 
despots for a while, but which now leaves them 
practically strangers in their own land. 



THE CRIME OF SILENCE 249 

In the rules for censors one finds very little re- 
garding the publication of information valuable 
to the enemy. That phase had been accepted as 
axiomatic for a long time by our civil as well as 
by our military population. But criticism of any 
kind was forbidden; all mention of shortcomings 
of whatever nature was prohibited ; any reference 
to the achievements or valor of individuals, how- 
soever insignificant, was not permitted. In ad- 
dition, it was verbally explained to the censors 
that nobody was to get *'any advertising.^^ 

Whether this course was forced upon the Ameri- 
can military authorities by the Washington ad- 
ministration to prevent a future presidential can- 
didate from rising in the expeditionary forces, or 
was fathered by the high ranking officers to pre- 
vent any Grant or Sheridan from appearing, I 
have not learned. It is evident, however, that ft 
succeeded in both directions. No man from the 
expeditionary forces is considered for the presi- 
dency ; and we do not know of an officer who served 
overseas that demonstrated his ability to com- 
mand an army without the assistance of French 
staff officers. 



250 THE ARMY OF 1918 

In its effect, our censorship was more severe 
than that of the English or the French. The 
French soldiers were allowed to write letters un- 
hindered by censorship, and both the English and 
French soldiers returned home periodically on 
leaves of absence or furloughs, carrying by word 
of mouth what the English were forbidden to put 
on paper. Americans, of course, could not return 
home for visits, and they were no more allowed 
to write their opinions from leave areas than they 
were when in the presence of the enemy. 

No sooner had the censorship rules been put 
into effect than they were regretted. General 
Pershing and his staff were strongly opposed to 
the War Department's method of selecting gen- 
erals, and would have welcomed newspaper sup- 
port to help them weed out the incompetents. 
They regretted it more at the end of 1917, when the 
little army in France was short of supplies and 
short of food, and when a request was refused by 
the War Department that newspaper correspond- 
ents be allowed to cable home about the shortage 
of supplies in order to stimulate production and 
transportation. Later in the war, partly because 



THE CRIME OF SILENCE 251 

of pressure coining from below, from journalists 
and from home, the rigidity of the censorship 
rules was relaxed; but to the end it remained a 
blanket on initiative, a snuffer on brilliancy and 
a camouflage for incompetents. 

Censorship eventually became a disease in every 
belligerent country — the more virulent, the more 
effective. In America it merely held back supplies 
and kept down ability. In England, besides that, 
it delayed the raising of troops and maintained in- 
competents in high command throughout the war. 
In France it almost brought defeat during the 
Spring of 1917. Had it not been removed by 
Premier Clemenceau upon his ascent to power it 
certainly would have brought about a collapse of 
France in the spring of 1918, when the Germans, 
in an irresistible flow, were apparently approach- 
ing the city of Paris and when the falling of ^ ^ Big 
Berthas'' in the streets gave the impression that 
the Kaiser's guns were much closer than was the 
case. 

Censorship was a vigorous element in the wreck 
of Eussia ; and censorship was largely responsible 
for the breakdown of morale in Germany. Un- 



252 THE ARMY OF 1918 

questionably it was proven by this war that the 
evils of an absolutely unrestricted press are not 
so dangerous to victory as a medieval censorship 
which oppresses all armies and all the peoples be- 
hind them. 

In our forthcoming military legislation one of 
the most thoroughly considered sections should be 
that governing relations between press and army. 
We must, of course, keep from the enemy all in- 
formation of a military nature. Likewise, we 
must put it beyond the temptation of any man to 
indulge the stultifying, lying suppression that 
characterized every army in the late war. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE ONLY SOLUTION 

We have finished another war in which our 
soldiers suffered unnecessary losses and hard- 
ships because of our failure to prepare, while the 
country at large has suffered almost nothing and 
the congressmen and the president who failed to 
prepare for the war have suffered not at all. 

It is, therefore, difficult to establish a military 
policy based on the lessons of the war. Congress 
cannot be expected to understand the subject. Our 
only hope lies in the formation of a sound doctrine 
which will be accepted by the public and by its 
representatives. 

This is rendered difficult by the fact that few 
Americans saw more than one phase of the fight- 
ing in which an American army took part. The 
American army, in turn, saw only a small part of 
the war, and the greater part of the American 
army was not engaged until the height of German 
power had passed. 

253 



254 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Our difficulty is increased by the fact that all 
governments in the war have strained themselves 
to falsify its every phase and to mislead public 
opinion, supposedly in the interest of a national 
morale, but really in that of the heads of the gov- 
ernment. 

It is necessary, therefore, in this work to out- 
line the course of the war as it actually took place. 
Space will not permit proof of the statements. 
They are true, however, and controversy about 
them can only result in establishing their accu- 
racy. 

Long before war started all the parties involved 
contemplated the possibility of Germany's attack- 
ing France through Belgium. Books had been 
published about it in all European languages. The 
French, English and Belgians were not surprised 
by a *^ grave breach of international law.*' They 
had held military conferences for some years in 
contemplation of just such an action. Besides, in 
similar situations, all the allies had done what 
Germany did. 

The conduct of the allied and of the German 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 25^ 

armies alike was based on military, not on moral, 
considerations. 

In time of peace Frenchmen served three years 
in the army, Germans only two ; therefore, France 
had half again as large a percentage of her popu- 
lation with the colors as did Grermany. The rela- 
tive strength of the French army to the German 
must therefore be stronger at the outset of the 
war than after all available reserves on both sides 
had been called to the colors. For this reason, 
and for reasons of tactical theory, the French 
'high command planned to fight a decisive battle 
with Germany at the first possible moment, and 
therefore moved to the attack immediately after 
the declaration of war by the most direct line, 
which was across the French-German frontier. 

To Germany, also, a speedy decision was im- 
perative, as the German plan was first to over- 
whelm France and then to turn upon Kussia. The 
German high command did not believe in the 
efficacy of frontal assault. Therefore, it opposed 
the French advance with troops entrenched in 
previously prepared positions, and turned the 



256 THE ARMY OF 1918 

French left flank by the great march through Bel- 
gium. 

The number of troops employed by the Germans 
on the one hand, and by the French, English and 
Belgians on the other, were not disproportionate. 

What is known to the English as the battle of 
Mons, and also widely known as the battle of 
Charleroi, was a very great battle, extending from 
the Alps to Belgium, in which the Germans won a 
great victory all along the line. After this vic- 
tory the Germans sent three of the army corps 
from their right flank to East Prussia, and with 
the remainder of the army pursued the defeated 
allies. 

On September 6th the French army, with its 
English assistants, faced about and in the follow- 
ing three days fought the battle of the Marne, 
which prevented the loss of the war. It was not 
a victory, however, that was at all decisive against 
the Germans, who retired to the north of the River 
Aisne, where they in turn repulsed all Anglo- 
French attacks. 

The next move in the campaign on the western 
front was the attempt on the part of the allies to 



THE ONLY SOLUTION ^57 

turn the German right flank, which, being met by 
German reinforcements, led to the well known 
race to the sea. 

The purpose of each army was to turn the flank 
of its enemy and to destroy him. In this both 
sides failed. Neither side intended a stabilization 
of the front nor was either side content with the 
line which actually became fixed. The allies would 
have wished to hold at least Lille and Antwerp, 
cutting the Germans from the Channel, while the 
German desire would have been to reach the 
French seacoast as far south as Abbeville. 

From a tactical point of view, then, the war in 
the west in 1914 was a deadlock. From a strategic 
point of view, however, it was a great German 
defeat, as Germany had planned to destroy France 
in sixty days. 

The lesson for us in this campaign is that the 
French army, trained but untried by war, after 
meeting a severe defeat, was able to retreat all 
along the line, in some places more than a hundred 
miles, face around, and win a battle upon which 
their national existence depended; that the Ger- 
mans could maneuver an army of equal size in 



^58 THE ARMY OF 1918 

accordance with the military principles of encircle- 
ment, brushing aside the mitrained Belgian army- 
like chaff, win a great battle, pursue a brave and 
skillful enemy into the heart of his country, then, 
defeated in pitched battle, retire to a strong 
position and check all pursuit; that England 
could, upon a moment's notice, ship sixty thou- 
sand men across the Channel, trained and 
equipped for war, munition them, supply them, 
and constantly reenforce them during months of 
hard fighting. 

Compare this with the two American armies at 
Bull Run a half century before, where both 
armies of untrained men ran away from each 
other; with the war mth Spain when our men 
died like flies in camps at home ; with the Mexican 
fiasco of 1916, when for months our men could not 
be moved a day's march from camp or even sup- 
plied or armed in camp. 

Warfare on an even greater scale was waged in 
the east. Although the French had not tried to 
fight on the defensive while waiting for Russia 
to mobilize, still after the early French defeats 
Russia made a great effort to relieve the pressure 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 259 

on the western front by a hasty and half organized 
invasion of East Prussia. This diversion was suc- 
cessful in drawing three army corps from the 
German army just before the battle of the Marne, 
but was itself roughly handled. 

The battle of Tannenburg, or the battles of the 
Mazurian Lakes, as they are popularly called, 
were not great battles, nor were the losses of the 
Russians heavy in either men or armament. There 
grew up in Germany, however, a need for a victory 
to offset the disappointment of the campaign in 
the west, and so the ^'victory'' of Hindenburg was 
created large in fiction. 

The great battle in 1914, the most nearly de- 
cisive battle of the whole war, was the battle east 
of Lemberg, in which the Eussian army totally 
defeated and almost destroyed the Austrian army. 

Thereafter, the Eussians attempted an invasion 
of Germany through Silesia. This was defeated 
by a combination of German and Austrian armies, 
after which fighting on a large scale took place 
backward and forward across East Prussia, Po- 
land and Galicia, the Germans generally having 



260 THE ARMY OF 1918 

the best of the Eussians, and the Eussians ahnost 
invariably defeating the Austrians. 

It is important to appreciate that in 1914 Eus- 
sia was the most powerful and chivalrous of the 
allies, as she not only fought her immediate oppo- 
nents, but more than once lent aid to France and 
England by launching attacks which drew German 
troops from their fronts at times of great allied 
distress. 

The lessons to Americans from this campaign, 
in addition to the readiness of all armies to ma- 
neuver and the ability of all their higher com- 
manders and staffs from the outset to perform 
their duties, is the way Austria, having lost one 
great army, was quickly able to produce another 
from among her trained reserves. Surely, if any 
one of the chief contending nations — France, Ger- 
many, Eussia and Austria — had not been organ- 
ized on the principles of universal service, that 
country would have been overwhelmed in the first 
year of war. 

When winter brought an end to the fighting it 
was seen that the opposing countries had been so 
evenly matched that neither side had been able 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 261 

to win the decisive victory wMcli had been sought 
by all. Germany, as the leading advocate of quick 
and decisive warfare, was, therefore, considered 
the loser in the resulting deadlock. If France and 
Russia had been able to stand off Germany on her 
own terms in a war started upon her own initia- 
tive, it was reasoned, the addition of England's 
army in the making would surely prove decisive 
in 1915. This argument proved faulty. 

In 1915 England's army was not ready to func- 
tion, while Russia's army had exhausted its am- 
munition supplies. Russia was well prepared for 
war in 1914 in trained men, in technical equip- 
ment, in skillful generals, and in arsenals full of 
ammunition, but back of the army there was not 
an organized civilization which in the other coun- 
tries, especially Germany and France, could make 
up the wastage of war supplies. 

In May, 1915, therefore, while the French with 
the support of the half -trained British formations 
stormed helplessly against the German line in a 
number of heroic and useless battles that need 
not be enumerated here, the Germans and Aus- 
trians concentrated against the Russian army and 



262 THE ARMY OF 1918 

broke the Eussian line again and again and pur- 
sued the defeated but stubborn Russians beyond 
the frontier of old Russia. Nothing in military 
history is more glorious than the grim determina- 
tion with which the old Russian army fought with 
empty pieces against the overwhelming storm of 
shot and shell poured on them by their enemies. 

In that year Russian regiments contained a per- 
centage of unarmed men who had to be clothed 
and supplied and exposed to enemy fire but could 
not be used until they had picked up rifles dropped 
by stricken comrades. 

I remember a conversation with General Brusi- 
loff shortly before the German attack at the Duna- 
jec river in May, 1915. I had been visiting his 
front line in the Carpathians, and in particular 
had witnessed an attack by Russian infantry on 
Austrians holding the top of a low precipice. The 
Russians had climbed a long steep slope and had 
dug a shallow trench at the base of the cliff. From 
this shelter they emerged several times in a vain 
attempt to escalade the heights, being slaughtered 
by machine gun and rifle fire. 

I mentioned this incident to General Brusiloff 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 263 

and suggested that while the Austrian position 
was practically impregnable against infantry as- 
sault, it was particularly vulnerable to artillery 
attack in that it afforded no shelter from explod- 
ing shells and could not be fortified without great 
time and labor. The general dismissed the sug- 
gestion somewhat impatiently. Said he: *^Men 
and munitions may be used interchangeably. I 
haven 't any munitions. I must use men. ' ^ 

What a furore such a speech would arouse if 
made by an American general! And yet our 
policy is not very different. War can be waged 
with the loss of a few well-trained men or of many 
slightly trained men. Our Congress has deliber- 
ately chosen the latter method throughout our 
history. Three-fourths of the men killed in the 
Argonne and elsewhere in France were killed by 
Americans; only one-quarter were killed by the 
Germans ! 

In the same year (September-December, 1915)' 
German, Austrian and Bulgarian troops, under 
German command, destroyed Serbia and occupied 
its territory. In this year, also, Italy joined the 
alliance and from then on conducted against Aus- 



264? THE ARMY OF 1918 

tria a secondary war, not without effect on the 
final outcome. 

In 1916 the western front became the center of 
importance for the first time since the battle of 
the Marne. The English army, always increasing 
and improving, and the French army, reaching 
higher and higher development in its technique, 
were preparing for a vast combined offensive. 

In order to anticipate them the Germans at- 
tacked Verdun in great force in February while 
the plans for the Franco-British offensive were 
still incomplete. 

If the campaign of 1914 on the western front 
was substantially a campaign between the German 
and French armies, the battle of Verdun was 
, fought entirely by Germans and Frenchmen. No 
allied troops appeared on either side. The two 
trained armies of the two military nations en- 
gaged in the greatest battle of history and ended 
in deadlock when the Franco-British attack on the 
Somme forced the discontinuance of the German 
assaults at Verdun. 

It must be noted by all, in spite of any national 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 265 

pride, that only when attacking the French have 
the Germans been stopped. 

They broke the Eussian line in the spring of 
1915 (May-September), and the Serbian line that 
fall (September-December). A handful of Ger- 
man divisions cut the Italian defenses like a thun- 
derbolt in the autumn of 1917, and the Germans 
smashed through the British army in the spring 
of 1917. American troops have resisted their on- 
set, but under command of skilled and experi- 
enced French generals. 

The year 1916, which saw Eoumania overrun, 
also saw a revival of the Eussian army, due to the 
arrival of the French and English-made artillery 
and ammunition and a brilliant Eussian offensive 
under Brusiloff which until 1918 was considered 
the best coordinated attack effected by allied 
troops. 

It was fear of this Eussian revival, as well as 
of the increasing British army and the develop- 
ment of French tactics and materiel which deter- 
mined Germany to enter upon the unrestricted 
submarine campaign which brought about her de- 
feat. 



^66 THE ARMY OF 1918 

The Eussian army, often victorious, more often 
defeated, never lost its power of resistance nor its 
promise of further aggression. It was at home 
that Eussia collapsed. The Russian people, suf- 
fering from the horrors of the war, broke into re- 
bellion, which rapidly descended into anarchy, 
and took Russia out of the war and of civilization. 

The course of America's timely intervention 
and the war in the main theater have been re- 
counted elsewhere. Our help was the main factor 
in the decision, but other important incidents must 
not be ignored. 

In June of 1918 the Austrians, this time without 
the aid of German troops, attacked the Italian, 
French and English forces along the Piave. The 
Italians had been much strengthened in munitions 
and equipment by their allies, their morale had 
been built up and French officers had tactfully 
imparted a considerable amount of military 
knowledge. 

The Austrian attack after some local successes 
broke down. The morale •of the Austrian people 
had suffered severely during the winter and in- 
fected the army, which in October broke into a 



THE ONLY SOLUTION ^67 

wild and disastrous rout, taking Austria out of 
the war. 

In September the line of the Central Powers in 
Macedonia was broken. Adopting the tactics 
successfully employed Jby the Germans on the 
Piave the year before, the French commander-in- 
chief concentrated French troops and French ar- 
tillery and with them broke a hole through the 
Bulgarian line. The Serbian army, which was 
not sufficiently trained to effect this complicated 
maneuver, was especially well qualified for the 
arduous pursuit, being familiar with the country, 
hardy, and used to meager fare. 

The Austro-German-Bulgarian- Turkish army 
was never rallied. 

Bulgaria sued for peace on September 26th 
and Turkey followed on October 28th. 

•The question has been raised as to the realness 
of this battle. It has been suggested that Bul- 
garia asked for an excuse to quit. Time will bring 
out full information on that point. It need only 
be observed here that the morale of a country at 
war is as much a part of its fighting efficiency as 
is its artillery. 



268 THE ARMY OF 1918 

Staggered by the defection of her allies and the 
defeat of her armies, Germany's morale collapsed 
and she in turn fell into anarchy. The sailors of 
the fleet refused to put to sea on October 21st. 
Their revolt rapidly spread. The revolution 
might have been checked if troops had been sent 
from the front for this purpose, but no troops 
could be spared from before the unceasing attacks 
of the American army. 

The revolution succeeded, and in consequence 
the army at the front no longer could be supplied 
and was compelled to accept any terms which the 
allies saw fit to offer. 

From this we must draw an additional lesson : 
that a popular government at home is necessary 
to support the bravest army at the front. 

France suffered more than Germany; France 
suffered more than Kussia. 

From September, 1914, until August, 1918, the 
life of the French republic hung by a thread. There 
were murmurings; there were plots; but never 
did the nation fail to support its marvelous mili- 
tary machine. 

In this war there were but two armies of the 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 269 

first class, the French and the German. The 
Eussian, American, English, Italian and other 
armies trailed along after them; in which par- 
ticular order does not matter. The French and 
the Germans were about an equal match in the 
field. It was the superiority of the French at 
home, the result of popular institutions, that 
achieved the victory. 

Equal at the front and stronger at the rear, 
France offers the complete model for national 
defense. 

German writers have dwelt at great length upon 
the aid they were forced to render the Austrians, 
aid both in troops and generalship. Sufficient 
stress has not been given to the aid lent by France 
to her allies. 

During 1914 French generals practically com- 
manded the British army. In the years following 
the British withdrew from beneath French con- 
trol and suffered heavily for their national ego- 
tism. They accomplished no military successes 
and, on the contrary, had to be rescued several 
times by the French from predicaments into 
which their inexperienced officers had led them. 



270 THE ARMY OF 1918 

It was French generalship, in addition to French 
and English materiel help, which reorganized the 
Italian army along the Piave after its defeat at 
Caporetto, and French staff officers as well as 
French artillerymen organized the Italian army 
for the campaign of 1918. 

Our own army, of course, was formed on the 
French model and briefly trained in the French 
school. Its most brilliant successes were achieved 
Tinder French generals and its most bitter failures 
came when French advice was disregarded. 

This fact must be accepted before a proper 
military policy can be found. It is a dose which 
will not be swallowed without effort. We admit 
readily that the greatest schools of architecture, 
of art, of acting, and of music are in Europe. Be- 
fore the war no doctor denied that a medical edu- 
cation was incomplete without a course in Berlin 
or Vienna. We approached Europe more closely 
in all these arts than we did in the art of war, and 
yet we find individual and national difficulty in ad- 
mitting our obvious military shortcomings. 

Why is it? 

It is because fighting is the primeval purpose 



I 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 271 

of the male. In modem times, when fighting be- 
comes necessary only once in a lifetime instead of 
every day, the urgency is no less great. The fact 
that it is the male mission is as true as in the stone 
age. 

Women have entered all forms of industry, of 
all the arts and the sciences. They play an in- 
creasing part in government, so long a masculine 
monopoly. From war only do they shrink. Here 
men stand alone, the preservers, the admired of 
women. Here they glory in their masculinity and 
resent any suggestion that the males of another 
race can excel them even in technique. 

Of this our lawmakers are ever conscious. They 
may not think that every man is a soldier but they 
know that every man is a voter. Hence the bla- 
tant oratory, the misleading question : * * How do 
you account for the fact that our boys after three 
months are better soldiers than the veterans of 
Germany ?'' 

The fact is they were not. * * Our boys ' ' did not 
fight in this war. Regiments of soldiers of a year 
or more training fought. Their efficiency varied 
in direct ratio to the length of their training, ex- 



272 THE ARMY OF 1918 

cept as modified by exceptionally capable or no- 
toriously inefficient commanders. ''Our boys*' 
never f ougbt well in any war. The civilian cannot 
endure the battle. A complete metamorphosis 
must take place to turn the civilian into the sol- 
dier. Many times must a man overcome the fear 
of death in his imagination before he can rise 
triumphant over it on the battlefield. 

It was *'our boys'' who broke on both sides at 
Bull Eun. It was ''soldiers" that would not give 
way on either side in the Wilderness. 

The Great Division lost twenty-one prisoners 
in a little trench raid in October of 1917 while still 
untrained and but eleven more during all the great 
battles that followed. 

The steeled soul is not all in war. The efficient 
private is a skilled workman, and each step up- 
ward in a military hierarchy demands an increase 
of knowledge in geometric progression. 

Just as misleading as to say that our boys are 
bom soldiers is it to suggest that our officers are 
bom commanders. Practice is as necessary as 
study to develop their abilities and to permit 
selection for important posts. This our old army 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 273 

did not permit, and in consequence our soldiers 
were not led mth the same skill as those of the 
French and the Germans. Indeed, the advantage 
which the American regnlar officer held over the 
National Guard officer in opportunity to become 
proficient in the art of war was less than the ad- 
vantage the French officer held over him. We 
suffered as a consequence. 

It is putting the case conservatively to state that 
throughout the army the French of any grade 
were the peers in military skill of the Americans 
of the next higher grade. The French private 
knew as much as the American, noncom; the 
French noncom as the American company officer; 
the French company officer as the American field 
officer, and the French field officer as the American 
general. 

So excellent was French discipline that civilians 
and thick-headed professional soldiers did not 
recognize it. French troops on the march looked 
like a mob as compared to Americans or English. 
They were merely traveling in the easiest way 
and could be formed in seconds. But American 
or English raw troops allowed such latitude would 



274 THE ARMY OF 1918 

have become a mob. So in battle. French soldiers 
would be found wandering" all over, but they 
were on substantial purpose bent and returned to 
their commands. Well trained troops can do 
things and be given liberties impossible to new 
formations. 

The French had no officer caste dispute. All 
their officers were chosen from among the whole 
people by examination, many of them from the 
ranks ; they were then given a complete education 
in the duties of company officers. 

There was no room for doubt as to who was the 
better man, officer or private. The private readily 
rendered obedience ; the officer had no need to pro- 
tect his authority by aloofness. 

But the greatest superiority of all was the 
superiority of the French civil government over 
the American civil government. In none of the 
crises of the war did the French civil government 
fail; not when Von Kluck approached Paris in 
1914 nor when the French army was bleeding to 
death on the walls of Verdun, or when Nivelle's 
offensive failed, or when the German wave almost 
submerged the allies' defense in the Spring and 



THE ONLY SOLUTION 275 

Summer of 1918. The French civil administration 
understood war and the French people under- 
stood war. 

We scattered our energies into a myriad of 
civilian pursuits — construction of unnecessary 
training camps, tremendous building of docks and 
warehouses. We had the surplus energy to spare 
and we had a minor part to play. France had 
neither, but she knew self defense as a nation and 
threw her full strength upon the enemy. 

It is a sophistry of ours to say that '*man for 
man, ship for ship, our navy is the equal of any 
in the world,'' as though a man or a ship means 
anything in a naval battle. We also salve indeci- 
sion with the statement that **our regular army 
for its size is as good as any army in the world." 
That is not true. Our small army was never 
trained as an army. Our generals were never 
exercised in the command of the full number of 
our troops. No effort had ever been made to clean 
out the incompetents among the generals as Joffre 
cleaned out the incompetent generals two years 
before the outbreak of war. 



276 THE ARMY OF 1918 

There is only one way to have a good army and 
that is to have every man a soldier. 

Then each one will be exalted in the sense of his 
manhood. 

Each father will understand the demands upon 
his son ; each manufacturer will know for what he 
is building; each congressman will understand 
about what he is legislating. The military man 
will be judged by a comprehending public and 
there will be no room for him to seek advancement 
by playing upon the misapprehensions of a civil 
constituency. 



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